Now that the royal wedding is behind them, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry aren't doing the usual honeymoon-in-Aruba thing, but jumping right into their royal duties and appearing in engagements. Meghan Markle just made her first appearance as a royal official, and her outfit could not have been more perfect. The couple attended a garden party at Buckingham Palace, which was thrown in honor of Prince Charles and his years of work with more than 400 charities and organizations.
Dubbed the "Prince Charles's 70th Birthday Patronage Celebration in the Gardens of Buckingham Palace," the two actually delayed their honeymoon in order to raise a glass to his achievements. While it's not actually the prince's birthday today, the party is part of a year-long celebration in honor of his 70th, where the family isn't only celebrating the Prince of Wale's patronage, but also the charities with which he has worked. For example, in today's garden party there will be 6,000 charity workers in attendance.
For this special occassion, the Duchess of Sussex wore a blush-colored dress with sheer sleeves and neckline, accented with an angled pink fascinator in the same color.
The dress is from Goat, a London based luxury cashmere label, which specializes in creating elegant, clean pieces in cashmere, wool, and silk yarns. Other fans of the UK label are Markle's sister-in-law, Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, as well as Victoria Beckham and Lana Del Rey. So suffice it to say she's in good shopping company.
This particular midi is called the "Flavia," and it's a rose-taupe wool-crepe pencil dress that's simple and timeless all at once. It features a paneled bodice and peach-beige sheer chiffon with sleeves that are trimmed with raw edges. She looks both modern and old-Hollywood, making it the perfect outfit for her first royal engagement.
If you want to channel the Duchess yourself, you can actually snap up the dress for your own wardrobe, though it will set you back some. It originally cost $643 and is now on sale for $450.
Of course, once Markle was seen with the pencil dress on, shoppers took out their phones and raced to Goat's homepage and crashed the site. It's still available to purchase though, and you can also get it through different sites.
As for the rest of the Duchess's outfit, her hat was a Philip Treacy original, which was created just for this particular look. Irish-born, Treacy is a London-based milliner and one of the most in-demand hat designers in the world. He not only designs creations for top fashion houses, but also makes bespoke styles for celebs like Sarah Jessica Parker and Lady Gaga, and regularly designs for the royal family.
Her silk clutch wasn't new to the event but taken out of her closet, where she originally wore the Wilbur & Gussie piece before to the memorial service honoring Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered in a hate crime 25 years ago and exposed the institutional racism in the UK police force. That time she contrasted the nude silk clutch with a black and white dress.
You might have also noticed that the Duchess is now wearing sheer tights, which is an official fashion etiquette rule that the royal family must follow. Markle has been known to go sans-tights before her wedding, including during her engagement announcement when she wore the amazing white coat. "You never see a royal without their nude stockings. Meghan, from what I can see from the engagement photographs, it doesn't look like she was wearing tights or stockings," royal expert Victoria Arbiter told INSIDER. "I would say that's really the only hard, steadfast rule in terms of what the Queen requires."
But now that she is a royal official, she has put on the nude stockings that are in-line with the Queen's rules. As far as first outfits go, Markle has knocked it out of the park with this blush-colored number. Here's to seeing what she comes up with next!
