Looking not to listen

Female politicans & the clothes trap

Whatever dizzy heights women scale, whatever triumphs they battle their way toward, society always knows how to put them back in their box. Faced with a female who has achieved, culture at large will take one look and sniff: “That’s all very well, but the state of your frock.” Behold, the reason why our first female Prime Minister exercised such notorious control over her image: cherry-picking Barbara Castle’s coiffeur, the Queen’s handbag and Elizabeth I’s pearls. There must be no chink in the sartorial armour, or in the nitpickers swarm.

The Greens’s Hannah Spencer may be a newly-minted force, hitting public consciousness in February’s Gorton and Denton by-election as the party’s first northern MP. However, she’s already learning that her appearance is all anybody wants to talk about. This is obviously entirely her fault.

First off, she’s young, blonde and attractive and sees no reason to quash these attributes to blend in with the pale, stale and male around her. Second, she boasts something of a signature style: trousers, a blouse and waistcoat in the toxic hues favoured by young millennials schooled in TikTok trends such as Barbie pink and Brat green. To use referents our heroine is too spring chickenish to understand, the guise is Go-go dancer locks meets Are You Being Served’s Mrs Slocombe swagger, in shades our power plumber might find lurking in a drain.

For her election victory, Spencer sported “gross green,” the New York Magazine coinage to describe the youthful fixation with chartreuse, high-fived as “phlegm green” by Spencer’s Instagram acolytes. She teamed this with Pepto-Bismol pink, garnering admiring glances from Elle.

For her maiden speech in March, its “never give up” message tied to International Women’s Day, she donned a lilac waistcoat, lurid pink blouse and emerald slacks, raising eyebrows in The Spectator. While, last week, she had the audacity to call out the “dirty grubbiness” of Reform while clad in a blouse that may or may not be Gucci, and thus may or may not retail for over a thousand quid. Cue Farage fanboys outing Spencer as the Green’s own Marie Antoinette, as a “Look over there!” strategy not entirely belying her words. The result: everyone and their dog keeps telling me that Hannah the plumber is a hypocrite.

Spencer doesn’t require Hannah the journalist by way of apologist, but, let’s unpack this a little, shall we? To start with, it is highly unlikely that this item is Gucci, a horsebit motif not being unique to the brand. Legions of imitators deliver what fashion types refer to as the “full Gucc” without, in fact, being the full Gucc. Either way, the sharp collar and sludgy hues of Spencer’s shirt suggest that it is vintage. If it were a Gucci garment, this would bring the price down to less Petit-Trianon levels (eBay offers them with change for £300). If not, I would suggest that – like my own “designer” garb – it was knabbed for a tenner on Vinted, hailing from Jaeger, St Michael, or the like.

And, yet - even were this the sign of a brand, spanking new Spencerian splurge – what of it? The woman works hard, and doesn’t appear short of a bob, even if accounts of her zillionaire status are fictions. Why should pints, pies and a trip to her detested dogs be considered fit pleasures for northern MPs and not the feminine fripperies of fashion; not least when this is all her audience is going to dwell on?

“Buy better, buy less” is the rally cry of every eco-fashionista out there. Spencer clearly considers herself this sort of conscious consumer, see the £180 recycled coat in forest (of course) from sustainable style merchants Damson Madder that our heroine pounded pavements in during her campaign. Besides, we’re all late-stage capitalists now, baby, including the Greens. Under Zack Polanksi’s breast-enlarging, CV-spinning leadership, one might say “especially the Greens”.

So here’s my advice to Spencer: Gucci currently has a satin number going for £1,100 that she would look amazing in: turquoise, exquisitely cut, Tom-Ford era vibes. Or perhaps Andy Burnham should consider it for Thursday’s Makerfield star turn?

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NB I penned this before our heroine staged her own reveal. Behold, the full story and facts: