This week at work I’ve been thinking about when royals produce and sell merchandise.
Meghan Markle’s jam has been attracting attention, as the recipients of the first batch have been posting their gifts on social media. The first 50 jars, branded only with the name of her lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard, have been sent to some of her famous friends in a bowl of lemons. But mystery still surrounds where the product can be purchased or how it is produced, with the brand’s Instagram and website remaining a blank canvas.
The interest in this jam because of the person selling it has made me think about when royals create and market products. Meghan is by no means the first royal to do this, and I thought I’d take a look at the ways in which this has already been done and in what circumstances.
Royal Collection Trust
First up has to be a mention to the Royal Collection Trust. While this is not the same thing as a member of the royal family personally selling memorabilia or products, it is worth understanding as it is home to a huge selection of merchandise in the name of the royal brand. The Royal Collection Trust is a charity and department of the royal household which looks after priceless art collection the Royal Collection, which the King holds “in trust” on behalf of the nation. The charity manages the public openings of official royal residences, and income generated from admissions and sales of produce and merchandise goes towards funding exhibitions and conservation of the collection.
A huge plethora of merchandise is available from the Royal Collection Trust, from tea towels and decorations to jams and gin made with botanicals from royal residences. The collection is home to all official royal memorabilia from milestone events such as weddings, coronations, jubilees and royal births and deaths. In the financial year 2022/23 the Royal Collection Trust reported sales of £24.1 million for retail and publishing, citing a boost from the Platinum Jubilee range and a commemorative range for the late Queen.
King Charles Duchy Originals
Closer to the concept of Meghan’s personal lifestyle brand is Duchy Originals, which was set up by King Charles in 1990 when he was Prince of Wales. The range was originally conceived to use produce organically grown from Home Farm at Highgrove and boasts that it has now grown to provide more than 300 products.
The business side has evolved since it began, and in 2009 it was announced that Waitrose was investing in it, which the Guardian newspaper described as a “financial lifeline” for the Duchy brand.
The range is still run by Waitrose as Waitrose Duchy Organic Brand, with some of the profits generating income for the King’s Charitable Fund. The King doesn’t benefit personally financially from the brand, but his chosen charities do.
King Charles Highgrove House
Separate to the Duchy brand is merchandise and products sold at the King’s personal residence Highgrove House. The Gloucestershire house is privately owned, making it different to a royal residence such as Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle which are maintained with public money.
Products on sale in the Highgrove shop include everything from Highgrove jams and honeys to teas, alcohol, mugs, glassware and more. The profits from the sales of these products go to The King’s Foundation which funds the education and training programmes to encourage sustainability.
Sarah Ferguson Books
Back in the 1990s, Sarah Ferguson had a successful run with a range of children’s books called Budgie the Little Helicopter. The books were made into a TV series with connected merchandise, all which made the Duchess significant amounts of money.
She has since written or been involved with multiple other books - from an autobiography to a diet book and her latest offering of romance novels. In 2020 it was reported that Sarah would be launching a new brand Duchess Inc selling luxury merchandise, but to date it has not materialised.
Zara Tindall Musto Clothing
Just after her wedding to Mike Tindall in 2011 Queen Elizabeth’s granddaughter launched a children’s clothing range with Musto clothing. The collection for 7 to 13-year-olds consisted of jackets, T-shirts, hoodies, hats and socks. She had previously launched an adult range with the brand.
At the time it was reported that champion equestrian Zara was involved with the creative process, design and development. She has now been a Musto ambassador for 16 years but no details of the financial arrangements for any of the ranges that she has been involved with have been made public.
Zara is also an ambassador for Land Rover and Rolex but she has not created any product ranges for them.
A Piercing Drama
This week at home I’ve been thinking about ear piercings.
A thread running through the past week in our household has been the fact that my 10-year-old’s ear piercing became infected. She has had her ears pierced since October and the process has definitely been more arduous than I remember my ear piercings being as a child (maybe my mum would testify differently but I definitely don’t remember saltwater bathing happening for months on end).
I know some families have big debates about what age to let their children get piercings, but we never really had much discussion. Our daughter was only vaguely interested, asking very rarely about it, until she was about nine. At this time, having had my ears pierced at a similar age, I was fine with her having them done for her 10th birthday and my husband’s aunt very kindly offered this as a gift.
After a false start forgetting to take my daughter’s passport to a piercing appointment at jewellers Astrid & Miyu in Covent Garden (there is no minimum legal age for piercings but they only do them from age 10 and require proof of age) we ended up going to Accessorize and getting them pierced there for a fraction of the cost. So far so good and they seemed fine for several weeks. But then she got an infection in January (I can’t remember which ear now) which went away with antibiotic cream and then this other one popped up now, six months down the line from the initial piercing, in her left ear.
One of the many things you are newly exposed to when you become a parent is the overwhelming sense of responsibility when it comes to the health of another person, whose wellbeing is more important to you than your own. There is a quote by author Elizabeth Stone that having a child is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body. I wholly concur. Every temperature, every cut and every sniffle can leave you lying awake until it is resolved worrying that you have taken the right course of action.
With a red and puss-filled ear, we made a doctors appointment and were prescribed the same cream once again. However, this time the doctor told us to take the earring out until the infection was resolved rather than the instruction we were given last time which was to leave it in. I double checked this given the previous advice and my daughter asked whether her piercing would close over. We were assured that was unlikely and that it would be better to take it out. So we did.
Googling this (the internet is both a blessing and a curse in this regard) there is a lot of conflicting advice out there about what the best things to do re taking out or leaving in a piercing is when you have an infection. The NHS says to leave the piercing in unless a doctor has told you to take it out, which in our case had happened so I explained to my daughter that we would put it back in once the infection looked healed.
Fast forward almost a week and we were ready put it back in. On the ear where there had been no infection, the piercing went back in easily (she had refused to be lopsided so we had taken both out). But I just couldn’t get the other one to go through. I tried a few times over the course of a day, all of which resulted in my daughter shouting at me about how much it hurt, shouting at me that I should stop trying to get it in, and then afterwards shouting at me that I should have continued to try to get it in despite her telling me to stop. She tried to do it herself to no avail. So in the end we gave up.
When I first decided to make this the subject of my Substack, this is where I thought the story would end. While keeping things in perspective and knowing that the main thing was getting rid of the infection, I was quietly pretty dejected. Since October I had been armed with love and attention and saltwater and cream and kept this piercing alive. Now we had given up on it. And I could tell my daughter was disappointed too. I had a feeling it wouldn’t go back in, she told me. I felt the same. Maybe she’ll get them pierced again when she’s older I thought, it’s really no big loss.
But in a twist that made me smile, my daughter came bounding out of school the next day with a pair of earrings in. It turned out that her friend had succeeded where I had failed during the lunch break in the toilets. It hurt a bit, my daughter said, but she wanted the piercing back and she was delighted. Honestly, so was I. And I’m hopeful that this is where the story ends.
Not exactly the same as selling a product but I have always wished that the Princess of Wales would do something similar to how Diana auctioned her dresses off at Christie’s to raise money for her charities - I wonder if they might ever consider something like that, especially at a moment when she is not able to visit her orgs in person. As for ear piercing, how funny that you mention as my almost-10 year old got her ears pierced last year and one hole closed up despite me closely following protocol (and being shouted at a bit 😌) and about a week ago, she decided to try again on her own and it worked!