ARO update

[Sunblessed]

At the end of August, there was a partial rejection of the ARO trademark because of the name and descriptions. Also issues with the logo.
They had 3 months to rectify, which you would think would be ample time.

But just a few days before the deadline, an extension has been applied for. Which would be another 3 months

So it’s obviously not an easy fix, I’m sure there have been countless people working to get this done and they have months! Yet they’ve not been able to sort it.

Seemingly, you are only allowed one extension. This would take her to the end of February. So pretty much a year since she’s launched and it’s no further forward, if anything she’s in a worse position. What a disaster.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/royals/article-14190917/Netflix-bosses-exhausted-working-Meghan-reveals-ALISON-BOSHOFF.html

Takeaways:

• her brand and show to launch in the first quarter of next year.
• Its not Archewell staff at the brand, that they come directly from Netflix
• she’s exhausting to work with

There is a new article alleging the Cesta bag-crafting female workers are not paid enough enough even by relative standards of developing country.

It is archived here
https://archive.ph/AIIB0

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/royals/article-14192859/women-Meghan-ethical-handbags-paid-exposed-bombshell-investigation-Mail-Sunday.html-

Cesta said only one percent of bags are rejected for quality reasons and that the women receive training to reduce waste. It says the women are encouraged to sell the rejects at local markets.

Wow no compassion or understanding of how exploitative the practice of making these severely underpaid and undervalued women pay for any substandard bag is. All of the other stuff about artisans and so forth is marketing guff to make the company look good. But this statement above is how the owner of Cesta really values and thinks about the women making these products.

How upsetting is that article😥. The company's statement is particularly uncaring and harsh, it is actually quite sickening how they are spinning and justifying it..

They are not the first company to exploit poverty stricken workers and they won't be the last,, but then here comes Meghan again with her faux do-gooder word salad statement, which yet again proves how inauthentic and dishonest she is. So much for doing due diligence on products she is promoting, investing in and using for her personal PR, 🙄

Harry and Meghan are building up quite the portfolio of companies who abuse African workers.

I guess Eugenies efforts at educating and raising awareness are not that effective with those close to her.

The Princess is the co-founder of the Anti-Slavery Collective, a charity that aims to ‘to eradicate modern slavery for an estimated 50 million people by bringing together change-makers and raising awareness.

Meghan Markles ONLY close Inlaw is running an anti slavery charity and yet she still couldn't manage to ensure the company she is investing in and heavily promoting, is not abusing poverty stricken women.

10p an hour.

10p. A. Fucking. Hour!

Only get paid if they produce. Have to cover their own transport and material

“Weavers working from their cement or mudbrick homes in isolated, rural villages in <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/Kdrwq/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/rwanda/index.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Rwanda can earn as little as 82p for an eight-hour day, despite the company hailing them as 'talented female artisans' who are the 'best in class at their craft'. The figure is less than half the £1.70 a day the World Bank considers as the 'extreme poverty' line.”

Cesta sells the bags for £700

Cesta then argues this:

“Cesta Collective, which boasts of its 'fair compensation practices', says the earning figures do take into account women's other sources of income and said the World Bank figure was outdated and not equally applicable to all Rwandans. The World Bank confirmed the accuracy of the figure to the MoS.”

They are actually arguing they don’t need £1.70 a day! and that they can make up their income elsewhere!

This is the problem with Meghan investing using her name. We all suspect that she doesn’t invest financially, but she offers world wide press. She did an interview with the NYT announcing her ‘investment’

But it’s a double edge sword- you get worldwide headlines, but will also get the scrutiny.

Cesta wouldn’t have papers investigating their practices if meghan wasn’t involved. They must be regretting her involvement. It’s a poisoned chalice.

Meghan should have done much more research.

The optics of this is disgusting, an aristocrat who promotes herself as a social justice warrior, who also claims to have suffered racism, investing in a company that exploits black African women.

Cesta caught lying:

“Until September, Cesta's website had boasted the company was 'proud to pay 500-700 per cent times the national average salary of Rwanda' – a claim that was removed some time after Meghan's investment was announced. After this was queried by the MoS, the company's lawyers said the change came as 'a reflection of their commitment to refining how they communicate'.”

meaning their hand was forced to tell the truth!!!

Their legal bills must be getting expensive. Maybe Meghan can make recommendations of some good ones

Cesta says:

'Cesta has acted in good faith and understanding through our partnership with All Across Africa which operates on the ground in Rwanda. Recent allegations are an attempt to discredit that work with speculative information that has been unethically manipulated. We remain committed to ensuring success is shared equitably by everyone involved.'

So? cesta? Are you gonna sue then? …….hmmmm thought not

Actually surely if you are in the business of producing things, you want to visit where they are being produced so you know what's happening? This is even more true if there's a 'story' behind the brand about 'female artisans' and you are boasting of fair compensation. Even the title is misleading. 'Cesta Collective' implies to me that it's some kind of cooperative business. Certainly if I just came across it on the internet or in a store, that's what I would think.
I just can't fathom the difference between what the women get paid and what the bag is sold for. That's explosive.
This is not a dig at Megan. This is aimed at the people who run the company but she is foolish not to have done some investigation of her own.

This is not a dig at Megan. This is aimed at the people who run the company but she is foolish not to have done some investigation of her own

Especially given her freakish attention to detail….

@smilesy indeed.

If she really did have a freakish attention to detail I think we’d be seeing a very successful H&M brand from the moment they took their ‘freedom’ flight. Fact is she’s sloppy and likes to cut corners as much as possible. She’s the opposite of what she professes to be, but that seems par for the course in all areas.

The shit is just coming from all over isn't it ? Every angle....

What’s the source for ‘freakish’ ?

imbeginning to wonder if it was intended as the compliment it was initially taken to be

During the controversy around the Princess of Wales’ Mother’s Day photo, a “source” said to Page 6 that this sort of thing would not happen to Meghan as she has a keen and freakish eye for detail

Who’s to say it was MM herself who said that?

I thought it was a phrase that had been kicking around for much longer !
(I’d vaguely, and it seems erroneously, thought it came from the early days as a working Royal as part of the explanation for her 5am starts etc)

I think her alleged “attention to detail “ has been alluded to for quite a while, but this was maybe the first time it was described as “freakish” 🤷‍♀️

Unfortunately meghans freakish eye for detail is as much of a misnomer as her ‘truth’ is. Frankly she couldn’t organise a p* up in a brewery. Her grand plan for quitting the RF consisted of a victim narrative with all the ‘ist words she could assign to her 2 whole years in the RF.

she has completely misjudged the American appetite for throwing yours and your DHs family under the bus. Misjudged the impact covid had on people isolated while they flew around in private jets lecturing on climate change. Talked about ‘community’ while she and H trashed their families and defamed an entire country and a thousand year old institution (while clinging onto and merching the titles) Their hypocrisy is off the scale.

ARO is yet one more shit show after all the rest. It needs completely binning and starting again with a new logo and name and none of the pretentious gold crowns and ridiculously long name.

I follow Jennifer Garner on Instagram and she has been evolving a company Once Upon a Farm that makes fresh wholesome baby food. They are just now in Target and seem to be doing well. It's fits in somehow with her public personna; support for Save the Children, family farm growing some veg which she helps harvest and her cooking on her feed etc. Plus she obviously has a great team behind her.

It's an example of how Meghan could be successful with a lifestyle brand, if she could develop a coherent narrative around who she is and what she is passionate about supporting.

The trouble is I don’t think Meghan knows who she is. She has such a scattergun approach to everything. Jennifer probably has a good sense of who and what she is. Meghan can’t make up her mind and changes (rebrands?) herself too often, with little to no commitment to each current persona.

@MrsLeonFarrell this is it - there is no one thing that is clearly associated with Meghan except for the Oprah Winfrey show and that's not a positive image.

Cookery legend Fanny Cradock is currently showing now and for much of the evening on BBC 4. It's her Christmas series from the 1970s.

Of goose: 'my maiden aunt says, oh I can't eat goose because it does repeat so! Well my goose never repeats on me!' Classic Fanny. Bags of personality.

She also talks about things that 'my purse won't stretch to' and shows what she does use, e.g. thin gammon slices (bacon) instead of raw ham.

Looks like you were right @Sunblessed

@Sunblessed well predicted.

I do hope this time they have the legal side all tied down. In the video Meghan says it was registered in 2022 so hopefully this trademark is already approved.

I just feel sorry for them now. The silence from the RF has been more devastating than anyone could have imagined at the start.