Handbags and glad rags
BARONESS Thatcher’s legacy will be mixed, to put it mildly, but her unmistakable style will be in there somewhere. “Style icon” is a politically ambiguous label. Divisive women like Thatcher, Eva Peron and Benazir Bhutto all influenced the way women dress, either directly or by inspiring a designer. Margaret Thatcher continued to do both long after she resigned. Her intransigence was infamous, but an awareness of her personal “brand” fuelled her style’s evolution through 11 years in Downing Street. “Every politician has to decide how much he or she is prepared to change [...] appearance for the sake of the media. It may sound grittily honourable to refuse to make any concessions, but such an attitude is likely to betray a lack of seriousness about winning power,” she declared in her first autobiography, Path to Power. The lady may not have been for turning but she could sway a bit.
Perhaps her gentlest incarnation as prime minister was the earliest. In May 1979, a beaming, golden-blonde housewife arrived at No 10, pledging to “bring hope” to a country sapped by James Callaghan’s “Winter of Discontent.” Her flowing, pleated skirt and fitted jacket were a vivid cornflower blue. This was the first of many outfits she wore in her party’s colour. The look was smart, middle-class mummy and the result of a pre-campaign makeover by Saatchi and Saatchi adman Tim Bell and Gordon Reece, head of communications at Conservative Central Office. The media-savvy pair teased her look from shrill Tory matron into twinset-loving, penny-counting homemaker. Her hair is what makes pictures from her first months easily identifiable. The “thatch” was softly set and looked like a strong wind might ruffle it. It did not last long.
