The prime of Mrs Sarah Brown

Published on Friday 13 November 2009 20:18

WITH HIS dull suits, mop-like hair and permanently scuffed shoes, Gordon Brown must surely be in the running for the dowdiest man in Britain label. Yet this week, in a move that is bound to raise the question of just how many mirrors there are in Number 10, a label of an entirely different kind was being pinned to his wife: style icon.

In the middle of one of the Prime Minister's most disastrous weeks in some time, as he struggled to atone for his sins after the outcry that followed the publication of a handwritten letter to the mother of a British soldier killed in Afghanistan in which he had made several spelling mistakes, Sarah Brown was hitting the front pages because of that dress.

You know the one – long, floaty, in a sea-green colour that showed off just the right amount of cleavage – it propelled Britain's first lady to the head of the fashion pack and gave Gordon Brown something no amount of spin doctors or political posturing has been able to provide for some time: credibility.

Sarah Brown's style evolution has been a long time coming. In June 2007, when she shrugged on the mantle of PM's wife she looked uncomfortable and (whisper it) frumpy in it. A lifetime's career in public relations had not, it seemed, prepared her for the role of first lady. Instead she hid in the shadows while her husband took centre stage, making only the odd appearance encased in dumpy two-pieces that did nothing to flatter her curvaceous body shape.

"She's not a fashion plate and she's not got that much interest in fashion," says John Davidson, fashion expert and former editor of Scottish Woman magazine.

"It's not easy for her to work out what to wear in the way that it is for someone like Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who has worked in the fashion world all her life and knows the political power of clothes. There was a time when Sarah Brown was going around wearing badly-fitting bras and terrible jersey tops – she just looked like she didn't care. And that, politically, is incredibly important." Yet while her husband's approval ratings slid into the negatives, Sarah quietly found her way. She began wearing the odd dash of colour, got herself some decent underwiring and started experimenting with hats.

"One of the things that has made her style so popular is that she looks like she dressed herself," says Edinburgh-based fashion designer Keira Thorley.

"She's a strong woman with her own opinions and I think that comes through in her clothes. She's not going to be told what to do."

Slowly, the more fashionable and outgoing Sarah Brown began to emerge. She joined Twitter, (now the most followed Twitter page in Britain, outstripping celebrities and fellow-Twitterers such as Stephen Fry), introduced her husband at this year's (and last year's) Labour Party Conference, and started looking, well, fabulous. "She knows the power of things like accessories," says Thorley. "She's got a few key items like some incredibly well-tailored suits and flattering shaped skirts that just suit her very well. She looks polished and pulled together."

According to those in the know, Brown's secret fashion weapon these days is Graeme Black, the Carnoustie-born former assistant of Georgio Armani, who went on to become head designer at Ferragamo and exhibits his own, eponymous label at London Fashion Week.

"He will advise her if she's got any big engagements coming up, particularly those on the world stage," says one source. "He's not exactly a stylist, but he does help her out when she needs it, and the fact that he's Scottish makes her feel comfortable, and gives her confidence."

Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to Wednesday night's dress, which she wore at the Cosmopolitan Woman of the Year Awards. "I thought she looked fantastic," says Thorley. "It's so important to wear colours that suit you. That dress suited her and she looked like she enjoyed wearing it."

And that, perhaps, is the key. It takes guts to wear a dress like that in front of a bank of eagle-eyed paparazzi, and a huge amount of personal confidence. If there is an air of "down but not out" about the Browns at the moment, it is, at least in part, Sarah's wardrobe, along with that grown-up style she has cultivated in the past two and a half years, that is behind it. For that reason, the dowdiest man in Britain just got a little less dowdy.