Samantha Cameron's M&S dress shock horror

[Kathyis12feethighandbites]

here, DM I'm afraid

AIBU to find this very funny? It's like the 'Dave cycling to work with his chauffeur right behind him' thing all over again....

Michelle Obama also wears carefully-chosen High Street stuff on occasion, though -- she wore J Crew on Jay Leno and Donna Ricco on The View. It's similarly carefully managed (well, obviously rather more carefully managed, given the way this has backfired) to match the outfit to the occasion and send a Message.

could you get more zeitgeisty though than the fact that Sam Cam wanted a dress that Myleene Klass had already worn. The bigger story is how Myleene always seems to get it right.

KERALA1 - I agree. She can't win.

If she had worn an expensive designer dress she would have been pilloried as being out of touch with ordinary women. If she had worn a cheaper dress but poorly fitted she would have been pilloried for looking a mess. I just think we shoud give her credit for trying to fit in with the recesisonary mood whle still looking well dressed. My DW has seen her a few times shopping in North Oxford on her own looking like any other Mum with a pushchair and children.

VictoriousSponge - you are a cynic.

Anyway, I have had a glass of wine at lunch so I shall shut up before I get into trouble. I learned my lesson on the denim skirt issue.

"Recessionary mood" "Bump into Stuart Rose at a champagne reception"

I know that happens to me all the time in this credit-crunch era

Actually, SIL is a dressmaker with several clients in Oxford so I would like to even more strongly push the "use a good dressmaker who can then spend the cash on buying Prof some nice things for Christmas" angle...

I think she should have worn Boden. Would have made Johnny a very happy man...

Who cares if Samantha Cameron buys a dress from M&S. It's a bloody gorgeous dress and she looks fantastic in it.

I don't usually buy clothes from New Look, but I saw a pair of jeans i liked in there that were only 20 quid (sorry, no pound sign on my keyboard)so I grabbed them. I usually like to spend 40 quid and upwards on a pair of jeans. But the New Look jeans looked good and they were cheap - bargain.

Just because you're married to the possibly soon to be PM and you come from a priviledged background doesn't mean you HAVE to always wear designer frocks.

I was good friends at Uni with a son of a Lord and he was known as The Honorable.... Guess where he did most of his shopping??? M&S and Gap!!!! Yes, those good old High Street shops.

Give her a break.

Mmm, florence, but did he get the Chief Exec of M&S to act as his personal shopper? And did you get Carl McPhail to phone round all the branches of New Look to secure your £20 jeans?

Because that's what's got people het up in this case, not buying things from M&S (coverage of SC shopping at M&S was extremely positive, overall, when people thought she had shopped at M&S in the conventional sense -- it's the new revelations that are causing smirks).

Professor, surely you must accept that as wife of the Leader of the Opposition, she is naturally going to be attending functions with people like Stuart Rose?

Of course I don't think she should only wear designer or expensive clothes, I just think she should be able to wear what she likes without being pilloried. There are so many brilliant British designers around (Emma Hope, Paul Smith, Christopher Bailey, ANya Hindmarch etc etc) that I think it's a shame that someone like SamCam wouldn't be able to showcase them like Carla does for Dior.

ProfessorLaytonIsMyZombieSlave, you're saying exactly what I wanted to say but am too busy rushing around today to do so articulately

I don't have anything against SC as a person - this is about how amusing it is to watch Tory spin backfire.

As I said, I have no issue whatsoever with her using her connection with Stuart Rose to get hold of an out-of-stock dress. If I were in her position I would probably do the same (although not for that dress, which is lovely on her but would be gopping on me).

I do think that it is fantastically short-sighted to then wear a dress acquired in this decidedly non woman-of-the-people manner on the day of DC's speech to the Conservative Party Conference and allow it to be spun to the media as "Samantha Cameron wears down-to-earth M&S, in contrast to that flibbertigibbet Sarah Brown with her Erdem dresses". The Spousal Outfit always gets significant media attention. On the other days of the conference she'd mixed well-worn designer pieces (including Erdem, oddly enough) with high street clothes, which would have hit the right kind of stylish-but-not-extravagant note. If she'd actually bought the M&S dress in the big scramble for them when they sold out in the spring that would have hit the right kind of note. But to pick an outfit that she only got by being rich and well-connected and then allow it to be presented as showing how in touch with the common person's preoccupations she is was daft. Not line-her-up-against-the-wall-and-shoot-her, not likely-to-change-my-voting-patterns, not meaning-she-is-a-bad-person, but daft.

And I do think it is extremely funny to hear "having Stuart Rose get all his shops to search for a sold-out-for-months dress and alter it to fit you" described as "fitting in with the recessionary mood".

Worraloadoftoss.

IMVHO, of course

Oh, and ca I just say:

We do NOT have First Lady in this country. If the PM happens to be married and male we have the PM's wife. Not the same thing At All.

"Allow it to be spun by the media"? Not sure how she did that. Perhaps she wore that dress simply because she liked it, is that so crazy? As you say, she wore Erdem and so on other days of the conference.

Yes, of course. There would have been no advance discussion with Central Office or the PR team (I did say "spun to the media" rather than "spun by the media") whatsoever over her choice of outfit on an occasion when the outfit is traditionally (and I would agree with you rather cringingly and pointlessly) analysed down to the last stitch for hidden fashion and sociopolitical significance. Certainly not at the last party conference before a General Election at which the Camerons' only perceived electoral liability is that they are seen as out-of-touch toffs. I am clearly foolish for suspecting for a moment that there might have been any PR involvement in it at all.

There may well not have been overt discussion of the potential spin angles, but with everything down to the colour of politicians' underpants being the subject of spin these days (Biscuitgate, anyone?) it would be politically naive to think that no one was going to try to spin a "Sam Cameron goes high street" story.

not for most peopel though

I think she probably has the Stuart Rose contact because she is the director of a huge retail brand, not just because she is married to DC. Likewise, if Stuart Rose desperately wanted something from Smythson I wouldn't think it unreasonable for him to call Sam Cam and ask her to track it down for him.

I doubt she gives much of a toss how they spin what she wears and frankly, we shouldn't either!

I have a few works dresses from gap - only about £30/£35 each.

Is the cardi cashmere Riven? I would spend £50 on a decent cardi.

I don t care what the wives of politicians wear. It is idiotic we are judging women in this way.

But the point is, the political one up manship. She was trying to counter Sarah Brown's designer dress by wearing an M&S one. Except she called in favours and had it bespoke remade.

Her ordinariness was a mirage.

The Tories are conning us into believing they are modern and normal and inclusive, when their leaders and candidates are drawn from the narrowest of social bandwidths.

Like Sam and Dave being photographed on Cornish beach last summer - such an ordinary family - just before they headed off on their real holiday - where her multimillionare titled family had chartered a flotilla of yachts in Turkey.

I doubt Sam was trying to counter Sarah's dress,tbh.The spin machine perhaps.
If I met Stuart Rose saocially,I would ask him to give my fashion student DD a job/work experience.
People always use contacts,and good old British Mand S haven't exactly lossed out ,have they??

I noticed that, apart from that article, there wasn't any hoo ha in the press about Dave's £3,500 suit.

There was an issue about his suit !!

Looking for it ...

The dress is really boring - what a pity that Sam Cam tried to do a Michelle O and wear high street and failed to pull it off, especially given all the strings she pulled.

And completely agree with other posters that she seriously needs to get her hair sorted.

yes, but most people don't pretend their use of social contacts makes them one of the common folk.