Spotted: Prince Harry wears J.Crew to welcome new son, Archie
The beleaguered American retailer J.Crew got a major PR boost this month when the most famous new dad in the world was photographed wearing one of its suits. When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle welcomed their first child — a son they have named Archie — as the latest member of the British royal family and showed him off to the public in a photo shoot taken two days after his birth, the Duke of Sussex, no stranger to wearing bespoke garments from Savile Row, chose a slim-fitting suit that comes from J.Crew’s popular Ludlow line. His look was in a light “geyser grey,” and is available as separates for $650 total.
Harry finished off the look with a rather conservative white dress shirt and navy blue tie. Esquire magazine trumpeted that it was a look that “every single one of us could stand to emulate,” while writer Derek Guy of the menswear site Put This On was a little less effusive in his evaluation: “He doesn’t look half bad. Which just goes to show that anyone can look good with a Ludlow suit and the unshakable confidence that comes with being sixth in line to the British throne.”
The Duchess of Sussex also made a bit of a fashion statement with her outfit that day. Her sleeveless wrap trench dress came from British designer Grace Wales Bonner, who, like the duchess, is biracial — the offspring of a Jamaican father and English mother. As Vogue pointed out in an online article praising Markle’s choice, Bonner “often uses her work to open up thought-provoking conversations around representation, gender politics, and black male identity.” Added the magazine, “For the Duchess to champion the work of a young Briton of mixed heritage, one who is leading a new wave of black and brown British creatives, speaks volumes.”
And what about Archie (full name: Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor)? He was wrapped in a merino wool snuggly from from G.H. Hurt & Sons, which costs $172, just over a quarter what his father’s suit cost. Hurt & Sons, a family-run, Nottingham-based firm has been designing shawls for the arrival of royal babies for the past 70 years, since Queen Elizabeth II gave birth to Prince Charles in 1948.
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