by She may be reluctant to be the so-called ‘First Lady’ (who can really blame her) but that hasn’t stopped Lady Victoria Starmer from easily slipping into new plate territory. After she entered Number 10 wearing a £275 tomato red dress from Me+Em, the brand’s website traffic to buy it increased by 300 per cent; by Monday morning all but one of the sizes had sold out (it’s still available in a rather stylish black and white version if you fancy). Similarly, the white sleeveless bolero jacket she wore to her husband’s landslide victory party at the Tate Modern on Friday night sold out in all but one size.
To be fair to British women, they have been a little hungry for good examples of smart occasion wear to crib wedding guest outfit notes from. With the Princess of Wales’s unexpected departure from the public eye, the style pages and intensive micro-industries of social media accounts documenting her every move and fashion decision have fallen silent. Lady Starmer’s fine journey into Downing Street fills a gaping hole in the accessible aesthetic affection of her fellow citizens desperate for leadership.
His weapon of choice, Me+Em is to go perfectly inclined, sitting in the ‘sweet spot’ of the fashion industry – a true Goldilocks of style park – without being too edgy and conservative (awkward) but with a hint. of cool. It is the sartorial comfort blanket of frazzled middle-class women who need easy-to-wear solutions, stopping there for weekend and office looks. Her famous track suit jeans and trousers are just as striking as the relaxed fit and frocks – all of which fall under her mission statement of ‘smart style’ which promises such a capsule wardrobe, with pieces working easily as wardrobe building blocks.
The label was launched in 2009 by Clare Hornby, who previously worked in marketing and advertising, and saw a gap in the market for contemporary clothing at the high street price point. Its data-driven strategy, along with edgier pieces, on-trend pieces and high-quality fabrics directed by luxury brand consultants, has quietly established the label as an aspirational, and highly successful outlier in the fashion industry. British. by accident and by misfortune.
At the top end, independent luxury brands are collapsing, and at the lower levels the remnants of our world-renowned high street are pitted against the potential of hyper-fast fashion megaliths like Shein. Meanwhile, Mise+Em is being worn by everyone from Margot Robbie to the Princess of Wales and Amal Clooney, going from strength to strength; with eight UK stores and concessions in Selfridges and Harrods, he has his eyes firmly set on the US where three stores have recently opened around New York – Madison Avenue to the Central Park crowd, Downtown on Mercer Street in SoHo and most recently in East Hampton to take advantage of the holiday weekend that could be tempted by his first trip into swimwear.
Lady Starmer is not the only new Labor woman to take part in the essay. Angela Rayner tackled a jaunty menthol green outfit for her first stroll along Downing Street to officially appoint the new cabinet. In keeping with its use as a women’s dress brand for high-profile moments, over the weekend one guest in the Royal Box at Wimbledon wore the same zinging green floral maxi dress (currently £227.50 in the sale) worn by Lady Starmer herself treat him Sandown Park in Esher on Saturday.
Previous holders of the non-role of the Prime Minister’s wife leaned neatly into the fashion playbook, ticking off 101 diplomatic outfits to pose as a semaphore. Samantha Cameron, having worked as a creative director for Smythson, was part of the fashion world anyway, she wore Roksanda and Erdem to the stars of London Fashion Week and hosted the fashion week parties at Number 10. Akshata took Murty, the great dresser, up that mantle wearing JW. Anderson slides and holding court with fashion retailers at Downing Street; Carrie Johnson used her wedding dress as a rental and The Vampire’s Wife is trying to launch her personal brand, which is now sepia-toned across her Instagram account.
The horror can be understood when you consider every outfit that was examined and the cost calculated, every shoe that was analyzed for its price point. It is an expectation that is not contributing. But the beleaguered fashion industry here could use all the help. Lady Vic might not want us to copy her outfits, but all the publicity is click-to-buy stuff that is much needed in this world.
