The satirical puppet show Spitting Image always had Maggie Thatcher in a man’s grey suit and tie, but they missed the point entirely.
She was always feminine, always meticulous about her appearance and would ‘twirl like a little girl when trying on clothes’, according to her stylist, Margaret King, who worked for the Iron Lady’s favourite label, Aquascutum.
It was King, who started working with the prime minister in 1987, who changed her posture from an uninspiring stoop to a more regal upright position, and weaned her off the more frivolous bows and flounces.
More... Margaret Thatcher: A moderniser who helped to put the Square Mile on top Now there really is no such thing as societyMrs T is often said to have invented power dressing: mannish suits with padded shoulders. But I think she did the opposite. Long before Sex And The City, she proved you don’t have to dress like a man to be powerful.
Head for politics: This striped monstrosity, left, worn in 1974 was a rare occasion when she experimented with a look. She preferred a bare head, believing a hat left her unable to think clearly. Come 1975, right, Thatcher had discovered her favourite print, the polka dot, along with her trademark pussycat bowAs she grew older, she added more jewellery, more brooches, more colour. Yet her look was always controlled.
And because she never once appeared with a hair out of place or a crease in a jacket, she was instrumental in paving the way for women at the top, proving we are not all ruled by our hormones and the school run.
Flowing dresses: The Iron Lady dressed in red for a constituency meeting in 1976, left. It was overblown for the occasion. Not only does it show decolletage but it is scarlet too. She soon learned to wear only Tory blue. In Zambia in 1979, right, she wore a diaphanous chiffon look years before J-Lo. She soon abandoned anything too floaty. In awe of the Queen, she copied her posture and brand of handbagBut to do so was hard work: her hair was washed, backcombed and sprayed on a Monday then freshened up three times a week.
Each outfit was frugally worn more than once and stored after it had been dry-cleaned with matching shoes, handbag, jewellery and the date it was last aired.
Her strong suit: In a bold Aquascutum jacket. By now in the early nineties, left, the hair has increased in stature while the pearls have grown even bigger. The white collar gives a befitting puritanical air. Twenty years after the Falklands victory, this is Mrs Thatcher in a boxy suit, now too big for her as she succumed to illnessThis was not vanity, it was focus.
Her attention to her image can be summed up by this observation from Brenda Maddox’s excellent biography: in a helicopter, she would wear the ear protectors upside down, so as not to dent her hair.
