Not all of us are good at clothes. Some have the gift of sartorial certainty; some suffer from a sort of “mirror blindness”, doomed to stand in our bedrooms asking “Is this right? I can’t tell,” until everyone is late for dinner. You see this even in the odd Hollywood starlet – with their PRs and dressers and favourite designers – who, rather endearingly, still can’t tell what they look like until the tabloids get together to tell them.
When your job is in the public eye, though, clothes matter. Which is why many a prime minister has reached the end of a long day of nation-defining decisions only to discover that they themselves are being defined – possibly forever – by their “too-short trousers”, which are now splashed across every tabloid front page and have their own social media account.
There’s no excuse for “frockgate”, the discovery that a political donor has been giving the Starmers thousands of pounds for clothes. After days of ill-advised attempts to justify it, the prime minister has promised not to accept any more – not a great headline, as his beleaguered advisers will admit, in itself. But a question lingers over what Britain’s first couple do about the clothes issue. It’s a problem.
Let’s start with the obvious: a PM and their spouse can’t look scruffy. They’re on the world stage, by definition, almost wherever they go, and you don’t want them shown up by Jill Biden. But woe betide the pair who look flashy, or spend too much, even when the money comes from their own pockets. Theresa May’s £995 leather trousers – deemed “fashionable but fruity” – supported days of coverage. Did the trousers “distance” her from the “just about managing” families she professed to care about? What was the (fruity?) subtext? Was she trying too hard?
Naturally, our first couple should support British designers: the fashion industry is a punchy part of our soft power. But they shouldn’t, of course, accept freebies. What’s the answer? Cherie Blair, keen not to be found “frumpy”, spent thousands of pounds of her own money on high-end clothing. But not every PM’s spouse is a top barrister. Should they be browsing charity shops and vintage stores in their spare time? Haven’t they got better things to do?
Then of course there are those fashion “mistakes” committed by the sartorially challenged. The Telegraph once deemed Rishi Sunak’s ankle-flashing suits a “political liability” – taking much needed attention away from his policies. Boris Johnson’s shambolic style, “clothes to lie in”, as the Guardian put it, was thought to reflect his policies only too well. But how to correct these errors? Should the taxpayer really be forking out for personal shoppers?
It was Gordon Brown’s wife, Sarah, who came up with the solution. Designers were keen to give her free clothes, which she couldn’t accept – but she could use them for a special event and give them back. Carrie Johnson followed suit, renting Karen Millen and Eponine London for special events. If the Starmers borrow one thing from the Johnson administration, it should be this.
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