SAN JOSE, Calif. — The symbolism that Meghan Markle chose for her stunning New Year’s Day return to Instagram, the day before announcing her splashy new Netflix lifestyle show, could not be any more clear.

In classic, black-and-white imagery, a video, reportedly shot by Prince Harry, shows the Duchess of Sussex, barefoot and wearing a casual, flowing white shirt and white Capri pants. She runs toward the surf of the Pacific Ocean near her Montecito home on a wintry-looking day. Laughing playfully, she uses her famed calligraphic skills to write a cursive “2025” in the sand.

Meghan’s new Instagram profile photo also shows her in another, sunnier beach shot, donned in a slip-style cotton dress that’s also very white. She also wears a large smile, as well as her only adornment, an elegantly simple diamond necklace — which the Daily Mail said sells for $15,000. A day after being launched, the @meghan Instagram account had amassed 830,000 followers.

Meghan’s Instagram return after five years was followed by Thursday’s announcement, in tandem with Netflix, that she’s launching her long-anticipated lifestyle show on Jan. 15.

Titled “With Love, Meghan,” the show’s trailer shows the duchess in splashes of color — in the kitchen, in the garden and even visiting a beehive — as she cooks, gardens, arranges flowers and serves cake. Harry makes a cameo in the trailer, and celebrity guests include Mindy Kaling, chef Roy Choi and Bay Area notables Alice Waters and Tatcha founder Vicky Tsai.

With Meghan’s New Year’s Day post, public relations experts said that her ocean imagery and her all-white outfit were obviously chosen to show “purity” and a desire for a “metaphorical clean slate” in 2025 — following a challenging few years for her public image.

“The all-white attire screams ‘purity of reinvention’ while the ‘2025’ etched in the sand conveniently doubles as both a literal timestamp and a metaphorical clean slate,” said Mark Borkowski, a top U.K. P.R. expert told the Daily Mail.

“Meghan has gone for the classic cryptic performance art Instagram post,” Borkowski continued. “It’s a P.R. textbook example of someone signaling a new era, designed to intrigue and mystify.”

“It’s a subtle power play, simultaneously fostering curiosity and establishing control,” he added.

In true influencer style, Meghan could also use her Instagram account to generate income, with companies paying up to $1 million to be advertised in one of her posts, the Daily Mail reported. There’s “no reason Meghan couldn’t be earning those sorts of fees,” P.R. expert Eric Schiffer told the Daily Mail.

The past year has not been kind to Meghan’s brand. She has faced harsh, entertainment industry reports about staff turnover and trademark problems with her proposed lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard, as well as renewed accusations in The Hollywood Reporter and the Daily Beast that she’s “Duchess Difficult,” the “demon boss” and “terrible” to work for. Famed editor Tina Brown proclaimed in the fall that Meghan has“the worst judgment in the world,” while media critics lacerated “Polo,” the “tone-deaf” Netflix series about an elite sport for pampered rich people that she co-produced with Harry.

Meghan’s Netflix show could counter the bad taste left by “Polo,” especially with her fun-loving vow that “we’re not in pursuit of perfection. We’re in pursuit of joy.”

The New York Post also opined that Meghan’s return to Instagram could be her way of seizing back control of the narrative around her public image. Deadline said her new account also allows her to hit back at all the online trolls that made her and Harry decide to leave social media in 2020. Notably, Meghan isn’t allowing people to comment on her new beach post.

As a Hollywood TV actor Meghan, was an avid social media user as she ran her The Tig lifestyle blog, described as “a hub for the discerning palate — those with a hunger for food, travel, fashion and beauty.” She shuttered The Tig in 2018, shortly before she married Harry and joined the British royal family.

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

But the couple discontinued the Sussex Royal account, around the time they left royal duties in 2020 and moved to the United States.

Meghan expressed reluctance to return to social media due to the “almost unsurvivable” online abuse she said she faced, Deadline reported. She and Harry also have urged social media platforms to strengthen content-moderation policies, saying that some apps could damage the mental health of young people.

Two years ago, Meghan teased the possibility of returning to social media in an interview with New York Magazine’s The Cut, confiding to the reporter, “Do you want to know a secret? I’m getting back … on Instagram.”

Nearly two years passed before Meghan launched an Instagram account for her new, proposed lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard. With the brand’s logo, she teased its luxury Central California coast aesthetic in “family, cooking, entertaining and home decor,” as Elle reported. Shortly after, she got some of her famous friends to post images on their social media accounts, showing that they had received limited edition pots of American Riviera Orchard strawberry jam.

It’s not clear whether American Riviera Orchard products will feature in the new Netflix series. The trailer shows Meghan placing a label on a jar of lemon curd — but it’s not the American Riviera Orchard label.

During the fall, American Riviera Orchard has been mired in a trademark struggles with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Most recently, the Oregon-based company that sells premium, gold-foil-wrapped Harry and David pears filed a claim with the patent office, saying that the name, American Riviera Orchard, was too similar to “Royal Riviera,” the trademark that was given the company’s founders for the fruit they raise in the Rogue River Valley.

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