Meghan Markle Brings Back Her Pre-Royal Mulberry Bag After 10 Years

Some handbags are just handbags. Then there are the ones that carry a whole life inside them. Meghan Markle has just reached back into her own past and pulled out one of the most familiar pieces she owned before the world knew her name, and royal watchers spotted it within seconds. The bag in question is the Meghan Markle Mulberry bag, her oxblood Mulberry Bayswater tote, and its quiet return in the new portraits for her As Ever holiday catalogue has set off a fresh wave of fascination about the Duchess of Sussex, her style, and the life she is building back in Britain.

The portraits appear in the 2026 holiday catalogue for As Ever, the lifestyle brand Meghan launched in April 2025. Alongside a heartfelt foreword written by Meghan herself, the catalogue shows her in a series of elegant outfits, each one styled with the easy polish that has become her signature. But one photograph stopped fashion watchers in their tracks. There she is in a tailored houndstooth blazer and a simple pair of jeans, carrying the same deep oxblood Mulberry tote she was photographed with a decade ago, long before a royal title changed everything.

Read More: Meghan Markle Reveals As Ever Fig Spread As New Holiday Favourite | Meghan Markle Christmas and New Year Outfits to Copy This Season

That is what makes this return so quietly powerful. Ten years on, the same bag is back on her arm, this time in a glossy catalogue for a business she built herself. The blazer is sharper, the setting is grander, and the woman carrying it is a duchess, a wife, a mother of two and the founder of a brand. But the bag has not changed, and that is exactly the point. In a world where royal style is so often about the newest thing, Meghan has chosen something old, something hers, something that belonged to the woman she was before the palace gates ever opened.

Mulberry is one of the most quietly British names in fashion. The label is known for timeless leather pieces made to last for decades rather than seasons, and some of its most famous bags are named after places in London, like the Bayswater and the Pimlico, while others take their names from famous fans, from the Alexa, inspired by Alexa Chung, to the Del Rey, named after the singer Lana Del Rey. Meghan is far from the only royal who loves the brand. The Princess of Wales is a long-time fan, as are Zara Tindall and the Duchess of Edinburgh, and a Mulberry bag has become something of a shared royal language, a way of saying classic, British and built to last without saying a word.

But the bag is only half the story. In the catalogue’s foreword, Meghan opens up about the joy of being back in Britain with her family, and her words are the most personal she has shared in some time. She writes about an autumn of new adventures, and about the small moments that have filled it. “This year has reminded me how much joy can be found in the moments that make up a life,” she writes. “Evening snuggles with my children. Harvest baskets gathered for friends. Travel and adventure, time in the garden, building this business and sketching away at all the details, both big and small.” Then she adds, simply: “All of it has mattered. All of it has felt meaningful.”

Those words land differently when you remember where the family is now. Meghan and Harry are reported to have moved back to Britain with their children, Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, who are now attending a school in the UK. Since the reported move, Meghan has kept a deliberately low profile. Her only public outing so far has been alongside Harry for three engagements in Nottingham in October, though she has also been spotted enjoying lunch near Hyde Park and at Claridge’s, and spending time at Soho Farmhouse in the Cotswolds. The catalogue, with its talk of harvest baskets and evening snuggles, reads like a small window into that quieter life.

The holiday catalogue itself is the latest chapter in a brand that has grown fast. As Ever began in April 2025 with pantry staples and entertaining pieces, and its 2026 holiday collection has already given fans plenty to talk about, from a fig spread that Meghan has called a new holiday favourite to gift baskets, an advent calendar and a chocolate collection made with Los Angeles chocolatier Compartés. The portraits are part of that story too, because they show Meghan not as a distant duchess but as the woman behind the brand, styling the pieces herself, in her own clothes, with her own bag on her arm.

Fashion watchers love a full-circle moment, and this one is hard to beat. The Meghan Markle Mulberry bag first appeared on her arm when she was still, to most of the world, simply the actress from Suits. It was there in the early weeks of her relationship with Harry, before the engagement, before the wedding, before the move to California and everything that followed. To carry it again now, in a catalogue for her own company, feels like a deliberate choice, a small act of reclaiming the woman she was before the royal story began. It also fits the mood of the brand itself, which has always been about the beauty of everyday rituals, about things that last, about home.

There is something else here too. For years, every bag Meghan carried was read as a message, and every outfit was picked apart for clues. The return of the Bayswater turns that habit on its head. The message is not a new designer or a new price tag. It is continuity. It is a woman saying that some things do not need replacing, that the past still fits, and that the simplest choice can be the most telling one. In a season when the shops are full of things designed to be bought and forgotten, a ten-year-old bag on the arm of a duchess is a surprisingly bold statement.

What happens next is the question every royal watcher is now asking. Will the Bayswater become a regular part of Meghan’s wardrobe again, the way it was in those early Toronto days? Will the catalogue portraits set the tone for how she dresses through the festive season, with more of her own archive pieces making a return? And will the quiet, settled life she describes in her foreword, the snuggles and the harvest baskets and the garden, become the story of this next chapter, rather than the noise that has followed her for so long? For now, the only answer is the photograph itself, and the bag that has waited ten years to come home.

What This Means

The return of the Mulberry Bayswater looks like far more than a styling accident. Meghan chose to carry a ten-year-old bag from her pre-royal life in the glossy portraits for her own brand, and that choice sends a clear signal about where she is right now. It suggests confidence, a woman comfortable enough in her own story to reach back into it rather than run from it. It also fits a wider pattern. The As Ever holiday collection leans heavily on classic British touches, from blue-and-white tableware to the kind of tailored, country-house styling seen in the houndstooth portrait, and the bag sits naturally inside that picture. Her foreword, with its talk of joy, snuggles and harvest baskets, points in the same direction, toward a quieter, more settled chapter in Britain after years of noise and upheaval. None of this has been confirmed in an official statement beyond the catalogue itself, and the Sussexes’ representatives have said nothing further, so the reading should stay exactly that, a reading, not a fact. But if the portraits are any guide, royal watchers should expect more archive pieces, more classic British styling, and a calmer public rhythm from Meghan through the festive season, with the brand, rather than the palace, as the stage she chooses.

Key Takeaways

• Meghan Markle has brought back her oxblood Mulberry Bayswater tote, first photographed on her in December 2016, in the new portraits for the As Ever 2026 holiday catalogue.
• In the portrait she pairs the ten-year-old bag with a tailored houndstooth blazer and simple jeans, a look first identified by the Instagram account What Meghan Wore.
• In the catalogue’s foreword Meghan writes about the joy of being back in Britain, describing “evening snuggles” with Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, and an “autumn of new adventures”.
• Mulberry is a shared royal favourite, with the Princess of Wales, Zara Tindall and the Duchess of Edinburgh all long-time fans of the British brand.
• Since the family’s reported return to Britain, Meghan’s only public outing has been three engagements in Nottingham with Prince Harry in October.

FAQ

Q: Which bag did Meghan Markle bring back in the As Ever holiday catalogue?
A: Meghan is carrying her oxblood Mulberry Bayswater tote in the new catalogue portraits, paired with a tailored houndstooth blazer and jeans. She was first photographed with the same bag design in December 2016, a month after her relationship with Prince Harry was confirmed.

Q: What did Meghan Markle write in the As Ever holiday catalogue foreword?
A: Meghan wrote about the joy of being back in Britain with her family, saying: “This year has reminded me how much joy can be found in the moments that make up a life. Evening snuggles with my children. Harvest baskets gathered for friends.” She added: “All of it has mattered. All of it has felt meaningful.”

Q: When was Meghan Markle first seen with the Mulberry Bayswater bag?
A: Meghan was first photographed carrying the Mulberry Bayswater tote in December 2016, when she paired it with skinny jeans, a khaki coat and trainers while carrying a yoga mat in Toronto, during her time on Suits.

Q: Has Meghan Markle made public appearances since returning to Britain?
A: According to HELLO!, her only public outing since the reported return has been joining Prince Harry for three engagements in Nottingham in October 2026, though she has also been spotted lunching near Hyde Park and at Claridge’s, and spending time at Soho Farmhouse in the Cotswolds.