Vogue Does Fashion & Politics

The Guardian might have created a whole new page dedicated to the General Election, but it seems that Vogue isn't far behind. Having realised the power that lies in fashionable politics and political fashion, the website version of Vogue has taken a sartorial point of view on the current election campaign. Vogue.com's UK fashion editor Julia Neel presents a running commentary in the shape of style profiles on Sarah Brown and Samantha Cameron  and more in-depth pieces on what kind of accessories the wives of our party leaders wear...Have a look before you vote!

Sarah Brown & Samantha Cameron...and their eternal Erdem fight

As the General Election looms, the battle between the two First Ladies (one in waiting, the other currently in No 10) is getting more intense by the day.


The biggest arena that these two political heavy weights will fight on is of course the fashion catwalk. They won't so much walk the walk themselves, but try to stake out an personal style and direct their influence on the British fashion crowd and its customers. Sarah Brown has done an excellent job on that by affiliating herself with London Fashion Week and....Naomi Campbell!


Anyway, I give you this excellent Guardian break down of the two ladies finest and worst fashion moments....enjoy!

Sarah


The look The Erdem-wearing, best friends with Naomi Campbell Sarah Brown we now know is in marked contrast to the Sarah Brown who ­became prime minister's wife in June 2007. At the start, she was stiff and uncomfortable looking. Having given up a high- powered career to be a political wife, her wardrobe seemed unwittingly to convey a sense of her new role as a dull and fraught job – which, let's face it, it probably is. But the role of a modern first lady is to breathe life and emotion into a leader's image. Instead, on her first holiday as prime minister's wife, she dressed in an ill-fitting shift dress and tights, looking as if she were about to give a parti cularly tedious middle-management PowerPoint presentation.


Fast forward to 2010, and Sarah is transformed. The office tailoring has been jettisoned in favour of smart but feminine belted dresses, the hemline lifted from that dreadful, upper-calf length to a more modern, on-the-knee point. Lighter colours and jazzy prints have replaced drab shades. And, crucially, the makeover has felt natural, that of a woman becoming comfortable in her role.


Finest fashion moment The Erdem golden-toned, floral-print dress Sarah wore at the most recent Labour party conference was a triumph. In a ­conference season that turned into something of a first lady dress-off, Sarah won the Erdem round hands down (Samantha Cameron wore a black Erdem jacket a few days later). Holding her own next to Michelle on the Obamas' visit was also a triumph.

Fashion mistake Sarah has been dealt a tough hand: who would choose to join the first lady sorority at the same time as Michelle Obama and ex-supermodel Carla Bruni? But truly, there have been some atrocious jackets (the white Jaeger one stands out). Recently she has figured out that slightly retro, swing or box jacket shapes suit her better than fitted ones. Other low points: that purple beret for the Queen's Speech was dreadful. And Graeme Black may be Scottish and really nice, but his clothes do her figure no favours.


Key accessory Sarah has become a sharp accessoriser. She prefers simple clothes, but has learned to lift them with great jewellery from Astley Clarke. She chooses chunky necklaces and earrings in stones such as garnet, cornelian and brown sapphire, tones that work with her colouring.


Grooming Great hair, these days: a walking advertisement for the power of subtle highlights and a bit of a blow-dry. She has to be photographed with celebrities, and she has decidedly civilian skin tone. Good on her for sticking to her guns: she's just not the spray-tan type.


Favourite designer Erdem, designed by RCA graduate Erdem ­Moralioglu, who worked for Diane von Furstenberg before setting up his own label. Also partial to Jaeger, the Keep Calm And Carry On of British fashion brands.


Samantha


The look Deliberately normal. The subtext is: "I read Grazia. I shop at Zara. I do not wear tweed jackets and jodhpurs on the school run, or nip to the shops in ballgown and Hunters." Samantha is creative director of Smythson, where she has come up with some of the most covetable handbags of recent years: this is a woman with a keen understanding of the nuances of fashion. She has used this know-how expertly to rebrand the Tory wife as a working mother with traditional values but a modern mindset. She often wears trousers, and steers well clear of anything that smacks of privilege, so no family jewels and no country-set twinsets or pearls. She is adept at finding funky yet demure looks that play well across different audiences. Take, for example, her use of bright colour: to those of her generation and younger who know (or care) what colour-blocking is, she looks bang on-trend, while traditional conservative voters just think she looks like a jolly good sport.

Finest fashion moment The teal Reiss blouse with red jacket she wore to arrive at the most recent party conference. (Party conference is wardrobe crunch time, for first ladies and would-be first ladies.) The mustard-yellow Topshop coat. Any number of covetable blouses in soft colours, for that Boden catalogue, demure and wifely without being frumpy look. Excellent use of peg-leg trousers: this kind of look is fashion that men categorically don't get, so it sends a message that she has a mind of her own.


Fashion mistake Seldom puts a foot wrong. Could be argued that the grey M&S polka-dot dress she wore for Dave's speech last year seemed a little too focus-grouped. Occasionally allows herself to be photographed with sunglasses pushed back into her hair, which is a gaffe because she suddenly looks like a braying brunette Chelsy Davy. Ditto leather knee boots, which are a little bit too just-back-from-Oxfordshire-in-the-Range-Rover for comfort.


Key accessory Smythson handbag, naturally. Also partial to a bumblebee necklace and simple hoop earrings. Avoids pearls or diamonds or anything too posh as alienating. Scored fashion points with a yummy pair of Zara dove-grey faux-suede court shoes last autumn.


Grooming The hair has been inspiration for more than one across-the-barricades secret fringe crush. As with most women in the public eye, it has got glossier and bigger the more she's grown accustomed to being photographed – the annoying truth is, it looks better.


Favourite designer Erdem (see Sarah above) who has cornered the market in first lady patronage, a cross-party Jason Wu. Loves a bit of high-street- for-grown-ups: look for her in Jigsaw and Whistles.

Sarah Brown in Erdem...Again!

So London Fashion Week is almost over. We don't deal so much with here at FiP, you're better off HERE for that kind of coverage. But we always have time for Sarah Brown (or SamCam or MiOb for that matter) in Erdem. This is the PM's wife opening up the fashion frenzy....

Sarah Brown Hearts Naomi Campbell

While her husband is struggling with keeping Hollywood A-listers Renee and Reese apart, Sarah Brown has taken the celebrity No. 10 celebrity flirt a step further through making ex super model Naomi Campbell her "21st-century heroine". The nomination comes as part of the latest issue of Hapers Bazaar, edited by Lucy Yeoman. The choice was, apparently, in light of Naomi's frequent charity work, as opposed to all her convictions of GBH. Sarah Brown's reasoning goes as follow:

"The Naomi Campbell I had heard about was beautiful, successful, always late, a bit frightening, even a bit out of control," she writes in the magazine. "[The] Naomi Campbell I met [was] certainly beautiful, but also sincere, direct, and impatient in a good way."

Gordon Brown's Man of the Century must surely be either Chris Brown or Tiger Woods then...

Erdem Can't Decide - Left or Right!?

Conference season is coming to an end; the Conservatives only have a couple of days left. This marks the early beginning of the election campaign for the May 2010 election! That's all good of course, but at FiP we're also anxious to see what the First Lady and First Lady In Waiting wore. Not surprisingly they both went British. Erdem might be born in Turkey but he lives, operates and shows in London.

Cameron went for a sober black jacket-and-trouser combination, whilst Brown injected colours in her printed dress. SamCam also wore high street pieces (trousers from Jigsaw, a silky, top from Whistles, and high heels from Zara) and the jacket, according to the Daily Telegraph, was one or two seasons old. She's truly one of the people!

Still, I think Sarah Brown came away the winner. It's a conference after all and she introduced her husband - of course you should dress up. And She did that within limits as well; we didn't want her in a silky Versace number on that stage. Go Labour! No, I mean Go Sarah! Oh no, of course I mean Go Erdem!

Japan's new Premier and his (loony) wife...

Japan has got a new prime minister - Yukio Hatoyama - from the centre-of-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which bodes well for the rest of us; he's already well under way to deal with Japan's environmental problems and world wide responsibilities. But just as much press is given to his wife, Miyuki Hatoyama. She has some pretty wild ideas and claims, among other things, to have been abducted by aliens. This is an extract from her biography: "While my body slept, I think my spirit flew on a triangularshaped UFO to Venus. it was extremely beautiful". She also knew Tom Cruise in his earlier life, since he was Japanese back then...

That aside, FiP thinks she looks quite a stylish lady. She would look good in a bit of Comme, if you read this Rei Kawakubo...


Accroding to the Guardian's Tim Dowling, this is how the spouses comapare...


Joachim Sauer

Married to Angela Merkel

Wacky rating 0.1 out of 5

Quiet and reserved, Sauer rarely appears in public and didn't even attend his wife's 2005 inauguration. Holds certain views about the nature of the universe that most ordinary people would find incomprehensible, in keeping with his job as a quantum chemist. No pictures of him with Tom Cruise.

Sarah Brown

Married to Gordon Brown

Wacky rating 1 out of 5

The very picture of common sense, British reserve and tireless discretion. May have married the only person in the world in contrast to whom she could be described as devil-may-care. And she picks out his ties for him.

Michelle Obama

Married to Barack Obama

Wacky rating 1.5 out of 5

Consistently down-to-earth, even when interviewed by Oprah. No known new age proclivities. Like Miyuki Hatoyama, claims to have met Tom Cruise - but photographic evidence would appear to support this. Did not say if she thought he was weird.

Carla Bruni

Married to Nicolas Sarkozy

Wacky rating 3 out of 5

Formerly given to pronouncements about being "bored by monogamy", and claimed her husband had "five or six brains which are remarkably irrigated", though she may not have meant it literally. The only G20 spouse (so far) to have nude photos and sex tapes stolen. Author of some decidedly flaky song lyrics ("I'm that time slipping by is a bastard making coats of our sorrow . . .")

Cherie Blair

Married to Tony Blair

Wacky rating 4 out of 5

The only G20 spouse, past or present, capable of giving Mrs Hatoyama a run for her mystical money. The crystal-pendant wearing, con-man consulting, magic-circle casting QC was said to have sought the help of the late Jack Templeton, a "homeopathic dowser healer" whose clients also numbered Jerry Hall and Princess Diana.

Miyuki Hatoyama

Married to Yukio Hatoyama

Wacky rating Off the scale

This professional "life composer" claims she once flew on a triangle-shaped UFO to Venus, and says she met Tom Cruise in a past life when he was Japanese. Makes her own clothes from hemp sacks and starts every morning by pretending to eat bits of the sun. "I get energy from it," she says, adding helpfully, "my husband also does this."

G20 PICS OF THE OBAMAS (AND THE BROWNS)

This is the presidential couple boarding Air Force One - Michelle in a nice white dress (or possibly coat - let's leave something to the imagination...). Look at the perfect colour co-ordination; light blue AF1, white dress/coat and the white boarding equipment....

And here we are coming off, about seven hours later. Michelle has changed into a yellow dress, which perfectly matches the POTUS emblem on their left. Coincidence? I think not. The new White House is not only web savvy but also knowledgeable about fashion...

So they have landed, slept at the US ambassador's house in Regents Park and this is them coming to No. 10. There was the usual nervous and cringe-worthy handshakes, welcome wishes and kisses. All of them survived with their dignity, but Michelle, in her pretty off-white cardigan, stands out the most. Sarah Brown has apparently read our previous blog about how the Cameron's went all black on us. Ah well, better luck next time, Sarah...

Read more here...

Purple Rain...Again

It looks like Sarah Brown, the PM's wife, is equally inspired by Obama as her husband. Only in Sarah's case it's with Michelle, not Barack. As reported on this blog before, purple is truly the colour of the season. Not only Michelle but also Carla Bruni has been seen in purple shades. It really is a nice colour but I have to say that I think Michelle does it best...