Meghan wears a silky pinstripe set to deliver keynote address at SXSW

2024 sxsw conference and festival breaking barriers, shaping narratives how women lead on and off the screen
Meghanspeaks at 2024 SXSW conferenceMat Hayward - Getty Images

The Duchess of Sussex kicked off the 2024 South by Southwest Conference & Festivals with a timely conversation about women’s representation and the perils that social media presents to young girls.

As part of the keynote panel 'Breaking Barriers, Shaping Narratives: How Women Lead On and Off the Screen,' Meghan shared the stage with the journalist Katie Couric, the actress Brooke Shields, the author Nancy Wang Yuen, and the editor Errin Haines. It was a particularly fitting choice of subject, given that the opening day of SXSW coincided with International Women’s Day.

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For the event, Meghan wore a sea-salt silk set from Giuliva Heritage with a subtle pinstripe pattern. She tucked her shirt into a matching floor-length skirt, and accessorised with a pair of decorative golden hoop earrings. Beauty-wise, the duchess wore her hair parted down the middle and left it down. She kept her make-up natural, with rosy blush and a nude-coloured lip.

2024 sxsw conference and festival breaking barriers, shaping narratives how women lead on and off the screen
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In her speech, the Meghan said: “Your voice is not small — it just needs to be heard.” She also talked about making social media safer for children, a key issue for her, and one she has championed in the past.

At the first-ever Archewell Foundation Summit last October, Meghan and husband Prince Harry marked World Mental Health Day by offering a platform to parents who have lost a child due to mental-health issues rooted in overexposure to social media. The royals partnered with Project Healthy Minds for the event.

“The burden of this can’t solely be on the parents,” Meghan said at the time. “A lot of the conversations we’ve had quietly behind the scenes with tech executives, they do feel that they’ve created parental controls and certain guardrails to curb this, but not all parents are tech-savvy and can navigate that, and there needs to be a better solution than that. You put in safeguards so when situations like this keep happening, you’re still working to keep people safe.”

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