As Ever

[Chuchoter]

Meghan has renamed her luxury lifestyle brand 'As Ever'.

'As Ever essentially means as it's always been, and if you've followed me since 2014 with The Tig, you know I've always loved cooking and crafting and gardening — this is what I do,' she said. '

You’re confusing racism with xenophobia…..neither which is true in this case.

People can be racist & xenophobic at the same time. I'll decide how I feel thanks and as I said what country I am from isn't relevant to that poster.

What an odd comment

I am glad you agree with me. What country I am from is nothing to do with you.

I keep hearing 'As Ever' in the voice of Cher from Clueless in my head. It's really not good.

🥱

You can of course feel whatever you like but the question asked was neither racist nor xenophobic so 🤷‍♀️

I suggest everyone ignores attempts to start a row about race. This is just another attempt to get perfectly innocent posters deleted.

That poor As Ever company, their instagram is getting spammed with comments telling them to sue, asking where's the jam etc.

I bet MM will end up having to pay to get some sort of amicable agreement with them to use their brand name, as it's a terrible look for MM launch of As ever .... nada.

O I think I just posted the wrong emoji.

Anyway, just to say, totally agree.

Okay I'm ignoring all the derailment :-)

Back to the brand.....

I can't fathom it. It's not a well thought out name.

Aside from the fact another company is using it (where was the basic brand due diligence?), as other posters have said it's far too easy to riff off in a negative way:

• what ever
• a server
• stagnant/unchanging

Then who is the target market? People who will pay for a premium product are not shopping in a Netflix merch store - brands are very careful about where they sell from (in store and online) because brand association is really important.

Then, whether some people like it or not M is a marmite person. Just as some might buy anything to show support, a lot of people will avoid her products like the plague unless they are really, really good.

But how good can a jam, a paper napkin etc really be? There's lots of competition out there and you're going to have to shift a ton to make real money.

This is why so many celeb brands focus on high margin markets like beauty and perfume where you can carve out a USP.

The market only recent comparison I can think of is Angela from escape to the chateau. As far as I can tell she's done well monetising the fabrics and designs she made for the property in terms of wallpapers/bedding and soft furnishings. Some are really lovely and have a real story behind them.

I doubt M is going to have any As Ever merch in her own home to compete with her Hermes throws. It's just stuff to flog to ensure she can buy goods that are actually aspirational.

She is not a marmite person!

She is a jam person!

I thought we were all clear on that at this point!

I think it's rude to ask where I am from & don't understand why it's relevant.

I suggest everyone ignores attempts to start a row about race. This is just another attempt to get perfectly innocent posters deleted.

It should have not been mentioned in the first place, I find it offensive.

🥱 😴

But how good can a jam, a paper napkin etc really be? There's lots of competition out there and you're going to have to shift a ton to make real money.

This is why so many celeb brands focus on high margin markets like beauty and perfume where you can carve out a USP.

Yes, and none of them rely on a brand as their sole source of income. It's a side line for most.

Also, as I mentioned above, Netflix will be taking a cut from any profits, won't they?

Hawking homewares really isn't going to keep them in a Montecito lifestyle, even in the unlikely event of the brand being a great success.

The market only recent comparison I can think of is Angela from escape to the chateau. As far as I can tell she's done well monetising the fabrics and designs she made for the property in terms of wallpapers/bedding and soft furnishings. Some are really lovely and have a real story behind them.

Angela has a long background/pedigree in the design/vintage field though. And you can literally see her creative process, her efforts and the fruits of her labour in her programme before you go and buy her wallpapers (which I agree are lovely). And she's stylish as hell, I've admired her vintage fashion and aesthetic for years. MM just doesn't have any background, knowledge or skill in any of the stuff she's seeking to flog. And there's just nothing about her that's stylish, individual, different. She's a joke in that regard, known for being wrinkled, ill-fitting, beige and inappropriate. She's not filming With Love in her own home, so we don't know what's her style and what is a set. I just can't think of anything she'd be flogging that I would want.

The website is just a front page showing a pic of Meghan and Lilibet prancing through fields. I wonder if there are any products, or whether at this point they are just a list of stuff on the trademark application.

Why don’t you go a bit further back for good measure? Henry the Eighth, Richard the Third? Anyone else??

Well I am not white, and I find you cheapening the topic of racism by attacking a poster asking a perfectly innocent question offensive. One that you asked her back and which was answered by her without drama. So that makes you just as "rude" and her incredibly gracious, doesn't it.

We have seen a number of posters on this board trying to start ( irrelevant to the topic) rows and get posts and whole threads deleted and posters banned. I am hoping regular posters will be increasingly canny to this type of discourse, and stop taking the bait.

I agree with you, I was making the comparison for the same reasons you outline.

People who seem to have done well in the homeware sector are usually building on something else.

For example designers like Angela or Orla Kiely in the field of home furnishings. Or established food writers like Nigella or Jamie Oliver who seem to have done well with flogging kitchenware.

M's enterprises are simply without any foundation. It's not clear what people are buying into because there's nothing but a vacuum behind the brand.

In contrast David Linley (P Margaret's son) spent decades building up his, now very successful and very high end furniture business (11k for a bar stool anyone?). He's only recently gone into homeware (at the very top end - £350 for a chopping board by way of example). It's a niche market but everything is beautifully crafted and the furniture is made to order.

By contrast it feels that M just expects to be successful without the ground work.

I just can’t get over the fact that the pair of them had the world at their feet, she was awarded the role of Patron of the National Theatre, a position the Queen herself held and which she gifted to Meghan, they were both President and Vice President of the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust and these were just for starters, I’m sure Charles would have given the pair of them even more patronages and responsibilities on the world stage particularly with him being ill, but then again I can see Meghan’s point of view, she wasn’t getting paid for it! No wonder she has had to resort to flogging jam in a Netflix store in Philly.

I saw that. It was the first thing that came up when I googled As Ever.

Absolutely @BreadInCaptivity . It's always the way with everything that she does. Launches herself right at the top without having done the hard yards and weathered the knocks that would give her credibility and respect.

It's an attempt as a rebrand. Previous iterations which have fallen flat are they continued to use the Duke and Duchess titles and came off as being grandiose ('saving the world etc'). The latest PR person is probably directing her to tone it down and be more relatable, back to her Tig persona.

The problem is, a lot has happened in the last 4 years that doesn't land that as authentic with the public.

I don’t know why As Ever didn’t come up in the searches when the TM office were reviewing. it wasn’t difficult to find.

I think that As Ever NYC can move to have the TM cancelled but I’m not sure how expensive that would be.

That poor company, just think of all that expense.

Me reading this thread…

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