How to be more than a dress...

As Justine Miliband goes on the style offensive and Samantha Cameron starts frantically packing for next week’s Tory conference, Anne McElvoy analyses the politics of dressing for power
25 September 2013

She is, we should know “more than a dress”. Justine Miliband has a mouth and a brain attached and she intends to use it. Her spirited speech at the conference fringe, announcing that she is “a lawyer, a mum, an environmentalist, a wife” (check out the order) set a new standard for spousal chutzpah.

But even feisty Mrs Miliband concedes that clothes do matter. She will wear “whatever dress the media deem necessary” on the “barricades” of the election. This is the equivalent of gritting your teeth as you squeeze into those mandatory nude LK Bennett pumps to avoid the appearance of “Labour legs” — unflattering wrong-shade tights with dark shoes, previously a People’s Party speciality. But she also has a good eye for a svelte cut, choosing a silky dark floral dress also from LK Bennett (Justine is clearly a one-stop shopper). It replaced the first conference day’s Joseph LBD: smart enough but a reminder that hardly any Englishwoman can wear black in the daytime without looking as if she is at an employment tribunal.

Still, it is a poised improvement on Justine’s first coltish appearance beside Ed after his leadership win. She walked off in one direction, while he stared the other way. The Obamas on walkabout this was not. Since then, shrewd Ms Thornton (or are we supposed to say Mrs Miliband now?) has worked out that this sort of spontaneity needs practised choreography — and a look of serenity even as your feet are suffering from “Squeezed Middle” toes in those heels and the lights turn your make-up into a beige slurry.

Now that Justine has agreed to the spin doctors’ pleas to get involved, she will find that her main role is to interpret her husband for the benefit of female voters. Alas, many spousal reminiscences don’t quite come across as intended. Sarah Brown once spoke of her difficulty in attracting Gordon’s attention when he was engrossed in a CD, which served to remind us of his introverted streak. Justine has just confided that she once travelled all the way to Doncaster to help Ed prepare for a speech. This raised titters from those who knew Mili-the-Younger when he was a tad indecisive about girlfriends and tended to end up with strong women who were tenacious enough to hang on in there.

The only thing that will rankle with the rest of the Number One wives’ club is the suggestion that they require a pep talk about the need to be more than a clothes-horse. It does carry a faint hint of condescension, intended or not. Yet Sam Cameron knows from her experience in the ultra-competitive fashion world that there is nothing intrinsically trivial about style and that it can be used to garner attention for good causes.

She has perfected the art of wearing high-end pieces by her favourite designers like Erdem and Phillip Lim with Cos — and making sure she’d be photographed in soundly middle-class school-run fashion, dark three-quarter-length trousers and Zara shoes with no tights (hence the bunions).

Similarly, no one who knows Miriam González-Durántez aka Mrs Clegg could ever accuse her of being a passive mannequin — she is the proudest of the three of her maiden name and independence and privately much more outspoken about politics and other leaders than her emollient other half. Blessed with the glowing looks of a miniature Penélope Cruz, she makes chainstore clothes in her favourite red and white from Mango and Zara look delectable — and is confident enough to wear a diaphanous high street blouse and black trousers even to a stuffy dinner at Chevening.

Having raised the dress issue, Justine has probably succeeded in drawing yet more attention to her wardrobe, just as the thrice re-elected German leader Angela Merkel’s jokes about the meaning of the exact shade of her jackets became a self-fulfilling prophecy about her coalition intentions.

Probably, like a lot of high-powered women who feel a bit guilty about it, she rather likes clothes. I diagnose the sort whose north London cupboards harbour surprisingly expensive treats, once you look behind all those conscience-salving People Tree cottons. She got married in an elegant Temperley frock — and still sports the delicately spun label beloved of Notting Hillbillies.

Truly, we ask a lot of our political wives. They have to be cut-price Jackie Os, comfortable wearing both the best of British fashion and budget wardrobes. So Sam dutifully clatters along in bargain shoes just as often as she shimmies out in Choos and Erdem, while Justine is learning to live with a future in which her handbag will be analysed as much as her husband’s spending plans. When the battle on the electoral barricades gets going, the style wars begin in earnest.

FIVE 'MORE THAN' DRESSES

Justine Miliband is more than a dress. So are you. But that needn’t mean wearing a bin bag for life’s defining occasions. Rather, it means seeking out the perfect “more than a dress” dress to do them in. In its purest form, this is a sharply cut, beautifully formed wardrobe addition that ensures you look and feel great — without drowning out your personality. It should help you navigate your way through the prickliest of challenges. It’s a dress you wear to feel good in and, crucially, not a dress that wears you. To find the right one, seek sleek, moderately fitted styles with sleeves and a heavy duty fabric base. And don’t be afraid to splash a bit of cash: you’re worth it.

Karen Dacre

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