Meghan Markle and Prince Harry may be enjoying their “quiet life” in Canada, since stepping down as working members of the royal family—but that doesn’t mean they’re not making moves behind the scenes.
It was recently reported that the Sussexes popped over to Miami for an appearance at a private JP Morgan event, where Harry gave a speech that touched on mental health, as well as their decision to leave the UK for North America, at least part-time. Not to diminish the importance of his speech, but I’m just as interested in a dinner that reportedly took place following the speech between the couple and Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez.
Page Six reports the two couples dined at Habitat, a restaurant inside the 1Hotel South Beach, on Thursday night (February 6). “Harry and Meghan got on really well with Jennifer and Alex, and spent some time chatting with them over dinner,” their source said. “J. Lo was overheard inviting the couple and their baby Archie to her and Alex’s house in Miami to spend time with them and their kids.”
While we’ll likely never know exactly what the foursome talked about, here are some topics that I hope came up: J. Lo and Shakira’s Super Bowl halftime performance and the ridiculous sexist backlash; the royals’ trip to a Major League Baseball game in the U.K. last summer and whether or not they’ll raise Archie as Yankees fan; Lopez’s Oscar snub and that “Criminal” dance routine from Hustlers; a personal invite to the Lopez/Rodriguez nuptials; and possible charitable projects they can all work on together.
Seriously, what a power couple dinner. It was also rumored that Markle and Harry stayed with the duchess’s good friend, Serena Williams, at her home in Palm Beach while they were in Florida. So while they Sussexes may have put some distance between themselves and the British royal family, they’re happily spending time with American royalty.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry just made their first appearance as a couple since stepping back from their royal duties and moving to Canada. The couple was spotted Thursday (February 6) pretty far from their current Vancouver residence—in Miami, to be exact.
According to E! News, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex attended an exclusive J.P. Morgan event at the 1 Hotel in Miami’s South Beach on Thursday night. “They came in through a private entrance. They did their speech and left before dessert,” a source told E!. “She introduced him and he spoke.”
Unfortunately, that means there aren’t any photos or videos of the pair floating around. According to source, “security was very tight,” and the two were able to pop in and out without much fuss.
One of the last paparazzi shots of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry together, taken on January 7
Chris Jackson/Getty Images
This visit comes on the heels of rumors that Markle and Prince Harry are planning a move to Los Angeles for the summer. “They love being in Canada, but they are looking at houses in L.A. too,” a source told People. “They’ll likely have houses in both places.”
According to E! News, the couple have begun making some serious inquiries. “They have started to look at homes online and are in the process of interviewing security teams. They are getting their ducks in a row and seeing if it’s logistically possible,” a source said. “They’ve reached out to people in L.A. and would like to assemble a team of locals.”
In the meantime, the two are enjoying their new, quiet life in Canada. “They go for long walks, they do yoga, and Meghan cooks. They are real homebodies who love to chill out with Archie and the dogs,” a source told People. Markle, in particular, is keeping a low profile, mostly enjoying walks with her dogs.
Instagram/@sussexroyal
That doesn’t mean a move to L.A. is all the couple has planned. Apparently, they’re in the midst of launching a new charity organization as well. “It’s full throttle for them right now,” a friend told People. “They have a lot happening in 2020, and it will be really exciting to see.”
We just can’t wait to actually, you know, see Meghan Markle and Prince Harry again.
“After that, I had a fitting with Leyna Bloom. I love Leyna. We wanted to have her walk in the show, but she’s been out of town and there wasn’t enough time, so she sat front-row instead. Leyna’s been walking for us since 2016, and she’s got an amazing walk. She’s a dancer, so she’s so good with movement and she’s so talented—when we first saw her walk, we were like, ‘Okay, yes, definitely you.’
“Then I had to fix a crotch seam that was messed up. Even when we were pattern-making the garment, there were issues. We had to improvise and do a lot of hand-stitching. I was looking to see if it was passable.”
McCharen-Tran fixing a seam on Look 3 ahead of Chromat’s fall 2019 fashion show
Courtesy of Becca McCharen-Tran
Look 3 on the runway
Victor VIRGILE
The Final Touches
“That night I also finalized the beauty look for each model. I really wanted the makeup and the hair to speak to our overall theme for the runway show. I wanted it to trigger an urgency within the viewers, to tell the story of going from lush, tropical, beautiful plant life into plastic pollution and climate change. It went from big blush to greens and more sour colors, to see that disintegration from healthy to unhealthy.
“Ben Ritter, who is my right-hand at Chromat, had been doing a lot of work on the final look of the collection over the past two weeks. He had been taking all of the water bottles from our studio and then cutting them up and melting them over candles to make them all different shapes. They were spray-painted, and once they were dry, we put them onto a fishing net. The night before, it was a matter of positioning each flower and each water bottle where it needed to be and hand-sewing them onto the fishing net.
Members of the Chromat team finishing the train on the final look of the fall 2019 collection
Courtesy of Becca McCharen-Tran
Look 30, the last of the show, on the runway
Victor VIRGILE
“The live floral element was an interesting new twist on our show prep. We’ve done a lot of amazing collaborations—it’s definitely my favorite part of being a fashion designer and doing Fashion Week. I love working with people outside of the industry: scientists, choreographers, and now florists. It’s just fun to work with someone who doesn’t know the rules and who’s coming from a completely different place. With the flowers, it was the first time I worked with something that could actually disappear, that had such a finite timeline. We could approve certain elements, but there were a lot of changes that you might not have known to happen, between what we imagined and what was the runway reality. The florist, Nunko, had to do everything the day before.
“We focused on tropical plants. A lot of the bigger ferns and leaves were from my actual front yard in Miami—I trimmed them, put them in my suitcase, and the florist stored them in her freezer. It felt like home, being able to celebrate this place that I’ve come to love on the runway and knowing where the plant grows in my front yard. I can’t wait to go home this weekend and thank it for its contribution to our show.
The floral arrangement for Look 1 of Chromat’s fall 2019 fashion show
Courtesy of Becca McCharen-Tran
Look 1 on the runway
Victor VIRGILE
“I went to the florist at 9:30 P.M. They didn’t want me to come by until all the floral arrangements were done—it was supposed to be earlier, but it kept getting pushed back and pushed back. By the time I arrived, they had finished most of the arrangements, so I was able to just go and approve the final.”
The Calm Before the Storm
“I went home after that. I was adding friends to the invite list for the show, eating Trader Joe’s dark-chocolate-covered ginger, and watching The Bachelor over [my wife] Christine’s shoulder.
McCharen-Tran the night before her show, with her snack of choice
Courtesy of Becca McCharen-Tran.
“I started The Bachelor when Rachel was the Bachelorette, and I’ve been half-heartedly watching ever since. But Christine loves it—she’s going to get so mad that I mentioned this, because it’s very much her DL interest; she just loves to turn off her brain and enjoy. I don’t like Colton. He wasn’t my favorite from Becca’s group, so I haven’t engaged with this season. I don’t know anybody’s name yet. The Bachelor as an enterprise is so reinforcing of, like, gender norms, it’s so weird.
