by Jenna Rennert– Vogue
Whether you call her an official royal rule breaker or not, Meghan Markle Duchess of Sussex isn’t your average duchess. Stepping out last night for the British Fashion Awards in London, the newlywed framed her growing baby bump with a pair of dark and glossy manicured hands. That’s correct. Gone was the mother-to-be’s classic nude nail polish color. In its place? A moody new eggplant-noir shade of varnish.
While Markle has been known to beat to her own drum when it comes to beauty, tossing her brunette lengths up in a piece-y, unstructured bun for her spring nuptials earlier this year, the vampish nail color is a marked departure—one that breaks with unspoken laws of royal tradition, which dictate neutral and soft spoken, undistracting hues.
To present friend and designer Clare Waight Keller with the much deserved Womenswear Designer of the Year Award, Markle paired her onyx fingertips with a curve-hugging Givenchy Haute Couture black dress that revealed a single sculpted, statuesque shoulder.
Here’s hoping the rich, seasonally appropriate lacquer becomes a mainstay in the royal’s regular style rotation. After all, some beauty rules were made to be broken.