The Royal Family brings Canadian designers into the limelight

For an American actress, Meghan Markle has recently become an excellent style ambassador for Canadian designers.

On Friday, she wore a navy blue wool coat by Montreal's Mackage brand as she and Prince Harry greeted people and walked the streets in Nottingham during their first official joint tour.

On the website, the coat sells for $790. Or at least it did — before it sold out.

There were only four left in the company's online store early Friday, and they sold out within minutes of photos of the Nottingham event appearing online, said Mackage's communications director Hugo Thibault.

• Read CBC's complete coverage of the royal wedding

"Our website traffic exploded," Thibault said. "We had a 500 per cent increase today … mostly all in Europe, because North America (was) just waking up."

Markle has been a supporter of Mackage for years, attending the brand's fashion show in Toronto seven or eight years ago, Thibault said. The company knew she owned several of their pieces but had no heads-up that she planned on wearing the jacket Friday.

For her first appearance following the announcement of her engagement, she wore a white wool wrap coat by Toronto fashion brand Line the Label. That coat also sold out following her appearance.

The California-born actress moved to Toronto in 2011 to film the TV series Suits. 

Of course, this isn't the first time a royal has showed off Canadian designer threads. Herewith, a brief retrospective.

Princes Charles, William and Harry in Roots clothes

Well technically Charles isn't wearing the coat, but still. This Canadian Press file photo shows the three princes wearing (or holding) jackets from the Canadian Olympic Team uniform, which was launched by Roots in 1998.

Kate Middleton rocks some green

In her first trip overseas after Prince George was born in 2014, Kate Middleton wore this green jacket by Erdem, a line by Montreal-born, London-based designer Erdem Moralioglu.

Kate, again

Barely 24 hours after the Duchess of Cambridge appeared in this coat by Toronto-based fashion designer Bojana Sentaler, the grey alpaca garment and many others from the Sentaler brand sold out online. Here she's pictured donning the designer's threads at an event in Carcross, Yukon, in 2016.

Markle's Reitmans line

Markle designed a line of clothing for Canadian fashion retailer last year and appeared in a number of ads to promote it. Every piece was less than $100.