Meghan Markle’s As Ever Logo Problems Are a Little More Nuanced Than Armchair Experts Make It Sound

This week, Meghan Markle announced a relaunch of her much anticipated but delayed lifestyle brand, changing its name from “American Riviera Orchard” to “As Ever.” Along with an Instagram video, the Duchess of Sussex debuted a website featuring a photo of herself with her daughter, Princess Lilibet. Later, the American Rivera Orchard Instagram account changed its handle to @aseverofficial and posted a photograph of Meghan’s hand drizzling honey over a croissant.

In her initial announcement, Meghan said As Ever was a name she had secured back in 2022. An active application at the US Patent and Trademark Office shows that she and her legal team applied in September of 2024, and have been following the process to make their usage of the name official. But the process hasn’t been without comment. Not long after the announcement, two other brands who use the name “As Ever” piped up on social media to express their surprise. (Vanity Fair has contacted the duchess’s representatives for comment.)

Meghan’s new venture shares a name with As Ever, a New York-based clothing brand best known for a vintage-inspired jumpsuit once sold at Madewell. Earlier this week, the brand’s owner, Mark Kolski, took to the account he runs (@asevernyc) to say that he had heard about the coincidence. “I want to say thank you to all the old friends who know and love our small family brand As Ever, and also say hi to all those that have just become aware we exist. In the last 36 hours there has been an outpouring of support and concern regarding recent events around our namesake brand,” Kolski wrote. “We are aware. We are not affiliated.”

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Kolski said the news of the duchess’s new name had overwhelmed his inbox, and he had no advance notice that the choice was upcoming. “I’m really not that hard to find,” he said.

He added that he intends to keep making clothes under the As Ever name. “If they had intentions of making clothes out of the gate then it could have been a problem. They’re choosing not to make clothing at this time, but that could change,” Kolski said. “I have no interest in having any public forum battle against this new venture. That’s not who I am.”

Jen Corbett, an Arizona-based wedding photographer, noted in an Instagram post that she has been using the name for more than a decade. “‘When one of the most famous people in the world starts using your biz name of 12+ years (that you named in honor of your grandmother), seems like they could throw me a lil bone?” she said. But she later pointed out that she didn’t mean to detract from Meghan’s new brand with her comments and set her account to private. (Reached by VF, Corbett declined to comment further.)

Kolski’s fashion brand doesn’t have a registered trademark for the name. Corbett, however, has a registered trademark for the name “As Ever Photography” for photography services, which doesn’t seem to be something that Meghan is interested in offering, based on the applications she has filed.

Intellectual property lawyer Richard Stim told Vanity Fair that this situation happens frequently “when people file a broad application,” though he noted that the duchess’s As Ever filing specifically does not include an entry for Class 25 goods, the category for clothing. “She filed an Intent to Use application—that means you don’t get any trademark rights until you use it for commerce,” he added. “To acquire the trademark, she has to come up with goods in those categories. She has about two years in terms of extending that deadline.”

Trademark issues seemingly held up Meghan’s previous attempt to launch the brand under the name American Riviera Orchard. Last August, the PTO denied a request to register the trademark because the name was “primarily geographically descriptive.” In her video announcing As Ever, Meghan noted that the original name limited her geographically, and explained how it motivated her return to the drawing board.

“Last year, I had thought, ‘American Riviera, that sounds like such a great name.’ It’s my neighborhood; it’s a nickname for Santa Barbara, but it limited me to things that were just manufactured and grown in this area,” she said. “Then Netflix came on, not just as my partner in the show, but as my partner in my business. which was huge. So I thought about it, and I’ve been waiting for a moment to share a name that I had secured in 2022, and this is the moment, and it’s called As Ever.”

The new brand’s emblem features a palm tree flanked by two hummingbirds, and some have noted its resemblance to a small Mallorcan town’s coat of arms. According to Spanish-language reports, the mayor has said, “It’s a total copy,” and plans to request Megan change it.

A source told Vanity Fair that the new brand’s emblem incorporates a palm tree in reference to the duchess’s home in California and two hummingbirds because they are a favorite bird of Prince Harry, noting that comprehensive global searches of registered trademarks were conducted as a part of the process to develop the brand.