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By now, you’ll be familiar with the so-called Meghan effect: the phenomenon that involves the Duchess of Sussex wearing an item in public, and that item immediately selling out (the same applies to anything her sister-in-law, the Princess of Wales, wears, too). There was her friend Misha Nonoo’s Husband shirt, which she sported for her first official appearance with Prince Harry in Toronto back in 2017; the Hiut Denim jeans she wore during a visit to Cardiff in 2018; and the Rothy’s flats she wore on her tour of Australia later that year.
More recently, Meghan has been seen carrying Cesta Collective’s basket bags—including the bucket style, which she was first spotted with while out for dinner with Cameron Diaz and Gwyneth Paltrow in May 2023. The brand’s founders were about to board a plane to Mexico for a shoot the following morning, when their phones wouldn’t stop buzzing due to the amount of orders flooding in. “At that point, nothing had been tagged; we couldn’t figure it out,” Courtney Weinblatt Fasciano tells Vogue. “We got off the plane hours later, turned on our phones, and were like ‘Ohhh…’ It was very exciting.”
After enjoying the brand’s best-ever day of sales, Fasciano and her co-founder Erin Ryder decided to reach out to Meghan’s team to thank her for her support. Soon after, a call with the Duchess—who had discovered the brand online—was arranged. “We all really connected,” Fasciano says. “Then the conversation became [Meghan asking us], ‘How can I help?’”
As well as championing Cesta Collective’s bags, Meghan has now invested a minority stake in the company. It’s easy to see why the Duchess is such a fan of the brand, given the mission its founders set out with. After being introduced by a mutual friend, Fasciano, a former fashion editor, and Ryder, then a brand director, quickly bonded over their disillusionment with the fashion industry. “We decided that instead of both leaving the industry altogether, why don’t we harness our skills for good, and do something we can feel really proud about?” Ryder recalls.
The pair became interested in supporting handcraft, and specifically, the art of basket weaving. “It’s a huge source of economic independence for women around the world,” Fasciano explains. “A lot of the women that we work with do their weaving at home, so they’re able to care for their children and livestock, and have a meaningful impact on their families.”
They began working with a female co-operative in Rwanda to make their brand’s bags, with the weavers themselves setting the prices (working out to around 500 to 700% of the national average salary, according to the founders). Many of the artisans actually grow the sisal used to weave the baskets themselves, as well as using organic vegetables to dye the material. “Everything is custom done to our specifications,” Fasciano notes, adding that the bags are finished in Sicily by leather artisans.
After starting out with just five sample styles, it’s clear that Cesta Collective is going from strength to strength—even more so now, with Meghan’s backing. “Her support is immeasurable,” Fasciano says. “Every time she wears [our bags], it is a vote for the kind of business that we’re running and the decisions we choose to make. It’s very, very meaningful.” The artisans they work with, too, are “thrilled” by the stamp of approval. “They’re like, ‘This is amazing; we’re making these things that the Duchess is wearing,’” Ryder adds.
So, what’s next? “The goal is to work with best-in-class artisans around the world who are incredible at what they do,” Fasciano says. “We have big ambitions to spread this and make it into a lifestyle brand. The sky’s the limit—that being said, the mission comes first for us.”