The real success of the vote was Me+Em. Never mind vast but deep support. The incredibly powerful, independent American manufacturer, with 11 UK shops and two more just opened in New York City, was founded in 2009, in the dying days of the last Labour state, by Clare Hornby and Emma Howarth.
Over the past 24 hours, it has won 100 per cent approval from Lady Starmer, who wore a £295 cream short sleeve one shouldered jacket from the spring collection to the count past night, followed up with a £275 red ( of course ) fit- and- flare dress from the brand’s latest “drop”, and a pair of £295 silver slingbacks from, even a UK stalwart brand, with her husband on Friday lunchtime.
You won’t likely find Laura Kuensberg and her coworkers addressing any of the important questions that arise. Is £295 hereafter a fresh Labour fiscal plan? It is well known in the fashion industry as a middle-class lovely spot, meaning large enough to create an item seem soothingly ambitious but no unbelievably so.
Also, is anyone styling, guiding or otherwise personal shopping for Lady Starmer, who, ever since we have seen her in public, has not put a sartorial foot wrong?
Dressing for a life of public scrutiny as a woman is never easy. When you are as private as Victoria Starmer, determined not to drown in her husband’s wake, it is doubly so. The former solicitor, as we all know, works for the NHS as an occupational health worker and has two teenage children who, per their wishes, did not accompany their parents as they made their way up the famous street.
She has not been as disconnected from her husband’s career, judging from the glad-handing and air- kissing that took place between her and the aids outside her new home. So when on earth does she find time to shop, let alone figure out a proper way to dress in public and squeeze in the things that are already a hallmark of her public appearances?
Perhaps she was always naturally stylish. Her strapless wedding dress from 2007 shows that this may be the case, even though her future husband was just plain old Keir. It really hasn’t dated.
Vic, as her husband prefers to call her, is a master at crafting a timeless, up-to-date outfit, and appears to be too well-versed in relatively unknown labels to not have an innate interest in fashion. Take the red cotton pintucked shirt dress she wore to vote yesterday – from Jonathan Simkhai, a New York- born designer who won US Vogue’s fashion fund prize back in 2015 and has a knack for clean, classic, American sportswear.
That dress, in a new, green iteration currently costs £445. Perhaps Lady Starmer purchased hers a while ago for around the £395 mark. She might just have realized that, at this point in her life, spending a reasonable amount on clothing is a wise decision.
The beaded-edged, pale pink bias-cut dress she wore to a State banquet at Buckingham Palace in 2022, which is fashionably vintage, the sparkly cream number from Needle & Thread, a small British favorite of the Princess of Wales, she wore to last week’s Japan State Banquet, and the red, belted Edeline Lee dress she wore to Party Conference last year, all add up. Another favorite of the Princess is Canadian-born designer Laurel, who produces all of her flattering dresses in small batches at her East London studio to help support the industry and reduce waste.
Ask yourself whether that could ever occur in your mind and take your mind to that 1997 image of a bleary Cherie Blair answering the Number 10 doorbell in a cotton nightie from Next.
The truth is that Lady Starmer’s outfits have likely been run through some sort of approval poll algorithm, carefully checked for price, appropriateness, and potential offending someone somewhere, whether it be Just Stop Oil or The Natural Born KillJoy party since her husband first started to rise to Number 10. The fact that she hasn’t yet, is miracle enough. Let’s hope she continues to do so, because boy, is business today tough.
Lady Starmer, your country’s fashion industry needs you.