Royals

Meghan Markle Hits the Hamptons For A-List Advice About Her Jam Business

The duchess was photographed alongside Diane Sawyer, Bobbi Brown, and longtime friend Misha Nonoo, at the G9 Ventures Summer Summit.
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Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images.

On Friday, Meghan Markle reunited with two close friends at a business event in the Hamptons. The next day, makeup artist Bobbi Brown posted a picture with the duchess and her longtime friend Misha Nonoo at the G9 Ventures Summer Summit in East Hampton to her Instagram account.

In the photo, Meghan wore an oatmeal-colored linen vest and trousers by St. Agni. Gwyneth Paltrow, Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Katie Couric, Julianne Hough, Naomi Watts, and Spanx founder Sara Blakely were reportedly also on the guest list for the event organized by G9 Ventures, a firm that invests in early-stage startups founded by entrepreneur Amy Griffin.

According to Page Six, Meghan traveled to the exclusive enclave via private jet with entrepreneur Jamie Kern Lima, the co-founder of IT Cosmetics. Sources who spoke to the tabloid said the duchess was attending the summit to get some tips on launching American Riviera Orchard, the lifestyle brand she announced back in March. Lima later posted photos with Meghan at the event to her own Instagram, including one where the pair are sitting next to former anchor Diane Sawyer.

Fashion designer Nonoo, who married heir Mikey Hess in 2019, has known Meghan for nearly a decade and attended her May 2018 wedding to Prince Harry. Brown, who left her eponymous beauty brand in 2017 to become the founder and face of Jones Road, has worked with Meghan in the past, including a September 2016 promotional video where Brown taught the future duchess how to apply makeup in the back of an Uber.

Meghan announced her plan to start American Riviera Orchard with a new Instagram account and a soft-focus video earlier this year, and its products are expected to make it to the general public sometime soon. Though a trademark application filed for the brand lists a large array of potential products, including yoga mats, nut butters, and aromatherapy oil diffusers, so far only a few sneak peeks at Meghan’s new wares have been made public. In March, she began to send out limited-edition jars of jam to a list of friends that included Tracy Robbins and Delfina Blaquier. By April, the list of recipients was thought to include Kris Jenner, Mindy Kaling, Chrissy Teigen, and longtime friends Abigail Spencer and Kelly McKee Zajfen.