As October gets underway, there’s a change in the air. Not all is as it seems, and even the most summery among us are shifting into head-to-toe monochrome winter looks. Case in point: Meghan Markle—she of Montecito camel-colored cashmere basics—is hanging up the neutral palette for after-dark Armani, wearing head-to-toe power suiting for Project Healthy Minds’s World Mental Health Day Festival held in New York last night.
It’s been a fashion-forward week for the woman who not so long ago had us making resin flower pendants and homemade bath salts. Last week, she sent literal shockwaves through the audience, making her Paris Fashion Week debut at Balenciaga’s spring 2026 show, a vision in a custom white cape. In our celebrity-brain-addled era, it can be easy to get jaded with the megastars of today (everyone seems to have 40 million followers now), but the collective gag over the Duchess of Sussex’s Paris appearance reminds us that while we may pretend to play it cool, all it takes is a royal to send both the internet and the IRL front row into a frenzy.
Meghan’s power suiting is a hark back to the pre-With Love, Meghan days, a seasonal shift away from the linen shirts and Panama hats of her Californian summer wardrobe. As much as we’ve come to accept the Duchess for her Martha Stewart-esque exploits, could this new direction signal a pivot to full-on fashion girl mode for the balloon-arch-making mogul?