How to dress like a political wife

It is the fate of all “political wives” (and it is always wives, sadly) to be treated like a mannequin by the press. Their wardrobes are dissected almost as thoroughly as their husband’s policies—it is now such an expected feature of media coverage that details of their outfits are sometimes sent to journalists in press releases.

As a result, there are certain rules that must be followed:

1) Whatever you wear, it must be “from the high street.” When the press provides a detailed description of what you were wearing, it is guaranteed that they will also mention the price (“The wife of the Tory leader sported a £65 dress from Marks & Spencer…”). The message this sends to voters is that you are an “ordinary” family, with ordinary concerns. Wearing an expensive designer dress would be a telltale sign that you are, in fact, not. (Sam Cam made a mistake in 2010 when she wore a dress worth £749—or, as The Guardian put it, “36.8 first-child benefit payments”). In any case, if your husband is willing to spend £1,500 on a dress, God knows what he’ll do with the economy.

2) It must be a dress (or at least a skirt) and heels. I’m yet to grasp the full reason behind this—feminine and approachable, perhaps?—but the rule nonetheless stands. It probably has to do with appearing “unthreatening,” and may also be intended to show that you are willing to make an effort; if you can’t be bothered to put on a dress and heels, and make yourself look nice for the cameras, then how can we know that your husband won’t half-arse it on the economy, or border controls, or policing? Even Miriam Clegg usually sticks to this rule, and she has a tendency to flout them—as Jan Moir wrote in The Daily Mail last week: “It is no secret that Mrs Clegg always insists on being addressed by her maiden name of Miriam Gonzalez Durantez.” Most unreasonable.

3) You should wear a bright, block colour. This is camera friendly and helps you to stand out. If you’re really cunning you’ll wear the colour of your husband’s party, which indicates your committed support and, therefore, strong family values (unless you’re Justine Miliband, in which case Ed might ask you to steer clear of red).

4) Finally it should be short-sleeved, knee-length and nipped in at the waist: modern, but modest and serious.

What a political wife wears is taken to reveal something about the politics of her husband. This is unpleasant in two ways: first, it reduces a woman to her appearance, and second, it implies that her appearance is a passive reflection of her husband’s values.

Justine Miliband has had enough of all this, after three years of ruthless analysis. “Justine was transformed by a quietly effective makeover. Thank God!” the media wrote of her appearance at conference in 2010. “Justine Thornton [her maiden name] wears flattering blue dress,” they headlined the next year. “Justine Thornton is wearing a navy Joseph dress with red shoes from Hobbs & a Welsh dragon broach,” they tweeted live from the conference in 2012.

Finally, in her speech yesterday, the Cambridge-educated barrister was forced to declare: “I am more than a dress.” Speaking at a Young Labour event she said: “I wanted to come along to say a few words because I thought, ‘If I don't say anything to you guys tonight probably all you'll know about me this year is the make of the dress I wear for Ed's speech on Tuesday.’ That's a side of me the media tend to focus on and I thought it was quite important to reassure you that I am, in fact, more than a dress.”

Yes, you can make all sorts of cynical comments about how Justine—and her speech—is being wheeled out by Ed’s strategists in an attempt to drum up support for her husband; and about how her outfit was probably carefully crafted by Labour’s PR staff and will still be talked about by the press this week. But she didn’t have to say anything about how the media treats her as a passive clothes horse. Like Sarah Brown, she could have simply come out on stage and declared her husband to be “her hero” (an unconvincing description of Ed, perhaps, but surely no less so than Gordon). Instead, she chose to make a point.

The reasons behind it might be cynical, and there’s a good case for arguing that “political wives” should stay out of it altogether, rather than allowing themselves to be deployed as their husband’s more appealing sidekicks. But Justine is more than justified in highlighting the outdated treatment of political wives by the media. I shall be on #JustineMediaWatch for the rest of this week, keeping an eye out for how many publications take her point seriously, and how many think it appropriate to report what she was wearing regardless. Follow me on Twitter @jiabrahams for updates.