How an Instagram message from Meghan's PA changed a young woman's life forever

EXCLUSIVE: When Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex stepped out in Belfast on a royal engagement in the leadup to her royal wedding to Prince Harry in March 2018, she carried a special item.

It was a Charlotte Elizabeth handbag that had been made by a young British woman named Charlotte Jones, who had been battling a debilitating illness.

The moment transformed the now 30-year-old's life, giving her business the ultimate launchpad to a brand that's now used by Zara Tindall, Queen Camilla and even members of the Spice Girls.

"It was insane. I mean, that whole experience was insane," Jones tells nine.com.au in London.

It was an unexpected DM in her Instagram that kicked off a series of events, with Jones not quite believing it was real until she was hand-delivering the bag inside Kensington Palace as the royal bride-to-be had a wedding dress fitting.

"It said something along the lines of, 'Hello, I'm from Kensington Palace. Please email me'," Jones recalled.

"There was the email, and I remember showing my mum, and I said, 'This is surely a joke. This is not legit'. And then I Google searched this email address, it was legit.

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"I emailed her and then she said, 'Please phone me' and I remember phoning and [Meghan] was there, and I think I just seem to be too casual in these sort of situations, it's almost cringey," she laughed.

Treating it "like she's another customer", Jones made the call and heard the future duchess in the background.

A little white lie

The palace aide asked if Jones had a spare handbag for them to purchase and potentially use during the Northern Ireland engagement in two days' time.

Jones didn't have one, but that didn't stop her from taking a leaf out of Sir Richard Branson's book with a little white lie and ensuring she had one in time.

"I'd run out of all my stock, because I was making as I was going at that time," she tells nine.com.au.

"I got them made here in the UK in a factory about an hour, hour-and-a-half from my home.

"And so I was just like, 'Yeah, I definitely have a bag in stock. I will have a bag to you tomorrow at Kensington Palace. Yes, yes, yes'."

After getting off the phone to the palace she called the factory and pleaded with them to turn one around in a matter of hours, as her dad began the drive to the factory to pick up the product.

"[It's] a family story we tell all the time now, because it's hilarious," Jones says.

"I recruited my dad to drive up to the factory – he wouldn't even stop to get a coffee because he was so scared it was going to go over the bag and ruin it and it was the only bag.

"Then I whizzed up to Kensington Palace with my sister, and, oh my God, it was insane.

"I remember approaching armed guards and walking up with just this bag, because I was so sort of early in my journey then, I didn't have a box or anything. I literally just had a dust bag and walked up with a little card inside saying, 'Congrats on your wedding day'.

"It was madness."

Jones says she'll "never forget going in there" and having a short chat with the woman of the moment amid "Meghan season over here".

But that wasn't the biggest "pinch-me" moment of the whole thing.

That came days later, seeing Meghan not just holding her bag during the engagement but facing her label to the cameras.

"I was kind of told in advance, 'Watch it at this time, you may or might not see her wear it'," Jones recalls.

"I remember I turned on our news channel here, and it was just insane. She was throwing it around ... trying to get the name, the logo exposed, and it just went worldwide."

Royal history

Jones started her business, named after her and her grandmother Elizabeth, as a project to take her mind off health issues.

As a teen she would collapse regularly due to a heart arrhythmia, which made normal life difficult, and was later diagnosed with Supraventricular Tachycardia (SVT).

It's a heart condition characterised by a rapid, often abrupt, heart rate (typically 150–220 beats per minute) originating above the ventricles.

"I had to leave school for heart surgery when I was 16, and I couldn't go to university like all my friends were doing," Jones tells nine.com.au.

The surgery ended up causing more issues, with Jones developing Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) among a "whole other host of lovely, lovely things to go in addition to those".

"After that [surgery] I had a lot of time to think about lots of things, about what I was going to do with my life," she recalls.

"So it's in that time I was in my recovery, the four white walls of my bedroom, and I remember just this bag idea ... it was almost like an epiphany.

"I could see the whole business, I could see the design ... that was the moment of my life where I knew that's what I wanted to do."

Jones was inspired by the handbags her maternal grandmother used to use, which were similar to Queen Elizabeth II's style, and wanted to create a modern version.

Eventually, after some encouragement from family, she applied to then-Prince Charles' charity Prince's Trust in 2014 and joined a business mentorship program, which also came with a £3000 loan to help kick things off.

Jones credits the royal program, which includes a four-day workshop followed by a Shark Tank style presentation to get the loan approved, with being the first turning point of her business.

"[It] really fundamentally changed things for me and allowed me to go after my dream," she says.

Sudden setback

As her business started growing, her health started declining again in 2016.

Jones tells nine.com.au it was her hopes for the business that kept her going during this dark and difficult time.

"At my very worst, I couldn't even go to the toilet. I had full-time care from my parents, I was dependent on a wheelchair," she recalls.

"Amongst that time, I just knew, 'I've got a brain and I've got hands that can use a laptop, so therefore, I'm going to build a business. Nothing's going to stop me'.

"There was this kind of strange energy happening inside of me, where, despite my health being so bad, I had this strength inside to just keep going, because I could see the end goal. I could see what I wanted to achieve, and it was my focus."

Jones was open about both her health battles and the business she was building on her personal social media accounts – and believes that's how Meghan and/or her team found Charlotte Elizabeth bags (as opposed to through the Prince's Trust).

Big business

After Meghan's use of her handbag in 2018, Jones was getting in orders from all over the globe and enlisted her two sisters to work with her – one in finance, the other in marketing.

The business was growing so much they even hired more staff members, so they had a team of six and prestigious office space in London.

But then came the global pandemic and everything changed.

Jones was forced to downsize in a big way, even cutting her sisters back out of the business and going back to being a solo entrepreneur, which is how the business remains today.

"I'm not ashamed to say that I have been fighting so hard just to keep going because I've really believed in it," she says.

"And I always think, from my health journey, don't give up if you believe in something, keep going and do it however you can to get there.

"As much as people would probably think, 'Oh, wow, I bet that business has a huge team', I literally do it all on my own from my little cottage. It shows that you can kind of adapt to the times."

Living the dream

However, one thing Jones says she's never changed is the way she designs or manufactures the bags, keeping them British made.

As a result, Tindall and Queen Camilla have become fans of the bags over the years, wearing them to a variety of events.

"From the get go, I always dreamed a princess would wear [my designs], which is insane because that happened not long after I started the business," Jones adds.

"Seeing Queen Camilla wear it as much, as she has done the past two years, I mean, it's almost become her go-to handbag, so it's a huge compliment as a designer.

"It just shows it can be worn across generations, which is what I've always wanted to achieve with my designs ... when my grandmother was alive, I never wanted it to outcast her or my mum or my sisters. I want it to be universal."

Jones hopes to get the royal seal of approval from the Princess of Wales next, but her biggest hope is that one day Princess Charlotte uses one of her handbags, given her full name is Charlotte Elizabeth Diana Wales.

But, it's not just a case of sending one in the mail and hoping they use it.

"Unfortunately you can't, they have to be shown to purchase them," Jones tells nine.com.au.

"That's just a Royal Standard, I believe. So every bag that I have had the royals wear has been bought by them.

"But there was always that temptation of, 'Shall I just send her one, see what happens?'"

And it's not just the royals – plenty of celebrities also order from Jones.

Although, she doesn't always know who they are as they tend to order using a "Disney-esque name" – but that might just be the biggest sign Jones has made it big.

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