The symbolism Meghan Markle chose for her stunning New Year’s Day return to Instagram after five years couldn’t be more obvious.

In classic black-and-white imagery, a video purportedly shot by Prince Harry shows the Duchess of Sussex barefoot and wearing a casual, flowing white shirt and white capri pants. On a wintry day, she runs toward the surf of the Pacific Ocean near her home in Montecito. She laughs playfully and uses her famous calligraphy skills to write a cursive “2025” in the sand.

Meghan’s new Instagram profile photo also shows her in another, sunnier beach photo, wearing a slip-style cotton dress, also very white. She’s also wearing a big smile and her only piece of jewelry, an elegantly simple designer necklace – which sells for $15,000, according to the Daily Mail. A day after launching, the simple Instagram account @meghan had 830,000 followers.

PR experts told the Daily Mail that the beach pictures and all-white outfit were apparently chosen to show “purity” and a desire for a “metaphorical new beginning” in 2025 – after a few years of challenging her public image was.

“The all-white clothing screams ‘purity of reinvention’, while the ‘2025’ etched into the sand conveniently serves as both a literal time stamp and a metaphorical new beginning,” Mark Borkowski, a top UKPR expert, told the Daily Mail.

“Meghan chose the classic Instagram post with cryptic performance art,” Borkowski continued. “It’s a textbook PR example of someone who heralds a new era and is destined to intrigue and puzzle.”

“It’s a subtle power play that simultaneously arouses curiosity and conveys control,” he added.

Meghan is expected to relaunch her personal brand in the coming year with her Netflix cooking show and lifestyle company American Riviera Orchard.

In true influencer fashion, Meghan could also use her Instagram account to generate revenue, with companies paying up to $1 million to advertise in one of her posts, the Daily Mail reported. There is “no reason why Meghan couldn’t earn such fees,” PR expert Eric Schiffer told the Daily Mail.

The past year hasn’t exactly been kind to Meghan’s brand. After being labeled “grifters” by Spotify for simply producing their 12-episode Archetypes podcast, Meghan and Harry are facing harsh reports from the entertainment industry about staff turnover and brand issues at American Riviera Orchard, as well as renewed accusations from The Hollywood Reporter and the Daily Beast claim that she is the “Difficult Duchess,” the “Demon Boss,” and that she is “terrible” to work for. Famed editor Tina Brown proclaimed in the fall that Meghan had “the worst judgment in the world,” while media critics slammed the “tone-deaf” Netflix series “Polo,” which she co-produced with Harry.

The New York Post suggested that Meghan’s return to Instagram could be her opportunity to take back control of the narrative surrounding her public image. Deadline also said her new account allows her to fight back against all of the online trolls that led her and Harry to quit social media in 2020. What’s notable is that Meghan isn’t allowing people to comment on her new beach post.

A Hollywood TV actress, Meghan was an avid social media user as she ran her blog The Tig, which was described as “a hub for the discerning palate – those with a hunger for food, travel, fashion and beauty.” She closed The Tig in 2018, shortly before marrying Harry and joining the British royal family.

To promote their work as a senior royal couple, Meghan and Harry launched their hugely popular Instagram account, Sussex Royal, in April 2019. Her account reached a record 1 million followers within six hours of launching.

But the couple canceled the Sussex Royal account around the time she quit royal duties and moved to the United States in 2020.

Meghan expressed her reluctance to return to social media due to the “almost insurmountable” online abuse she allegedly faced, Deadline reported. She and Harry have also called on social media platforms to strengthen content moderation policies, saying some apps could harm young people’s mental health.

Two years ago, Meghan hinted at the possibility of a return to social media in an interview with New York Magazine’s The Cut, confiding to the reporter: “Would you like to know a secret? I’ll be back…on Instagram.”

Nearly two years passed before Meghan opened an Instagram account for American Riviera Orchard in March, sampling her brand’s luxe Central California coastal aesthetic in “family, cooking, entertaining and home decor,” as Elle reported. Shortly after, she got some of her famous friends to post pictures on their social media accounts showing that they had received limited-edition pots of strawberry jam from American Riviera Orchard.

Since then, not much official information has been released about American Riviera Orchard. The Instagram account only displays images of its logo while the brand is embroiled in a trademark dispute with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Most recently, the Oregon-based company, which sells high-quality gold foil-wrapped Harry and David pears, filed a lawsuit with the patent office saying the name “American Riviera Orchard” was too similar to the trademark “Royal Riviera.” received the company founders for the fruits they grow in the Rogue River Valley.