Presenter
On Saturday Mrs Thatcher held a party at Downing Street for all the leading fashion stars but before that event she told Annie here how she chooses her clothes and how she felt about meeting designers.
Anne Diamond
Prime Minister, I have spoken to a great many of the designers who are getting ready for London Fashion Week. They're thrilled to bits that they're being invited to No.10. Why have you decided to do this flying the flag for British fashion?
Prime Minister
Well, I really felt it was time that Government ought to show their tremendous appreciation of everything the fashion industry does. You know it employs 300,000 people, it does about one billion exports and I have felt for quite a long time that we don't give them enough Government moral support for the tremendous work they're doing.
Anne Diamond
What sort of Government support do you want to give, just moral support?
PM
Well I want to show how much we appreciate them, how much we value them. Other Governments do that. If you go to France, you know, you'll find all Government Ministers absolutely behind the fashion industry and we haven't somehow done it to quite the same extent here. Of course they do get all of the grants that are going for smaller businesses to help them and any help that we can give them when they take their shows overseas for export.
AD
Do you think generally the Government or other industry takes fashion seriously enough?
PM
I think we haven't quite taken it seriously enough. It is a very big employer. It's a very big exporter and with some very creative people doing excellent work. I'm thrilled they're coming here and I'm thrilled they're thrilled. I'm a little bit nervous about it because they're all going to look so glamorous.
AD
Why should you be nervous? [end p1]
PM
But of course. Of course they're going to be looking at me and I'm going to be looking at them.
AD
What suits you Prime Minister?
PM
I really only dress in two kinds of ways. One the kind of way I am now with a classic suit and many many varied different blouses—terribly important to have quite a wardrobe of attractive blouses.
AD
You must have hundreds of suits?
PM
Oh no, no. Suits with quite a lot of blouses and then also if you're travelling overseas and you arrive by aircraft I do find it much easier to arrive with a coat and dress outfit. For a very simple reason: the moment you get on the aircraft you hang up your coat and then you can put it on just before you get off and you're not full of creases. So that means I've got to go really for a basic wardrobe of good tailoreds. For example I've had this suit three of four years. It is marvellous, I love it. You ask me if I have favourites. Yes I'm always safe in it. Always safe. But the classic which I had done this year is a little bit different. I notice you're wearing sleeves that are a little bit different. You're very young but my generation would know that the little padded sleeves and the darts at the top of the sleeve were in the thirties. Now the classic I have this year, the sleeves are a little bit different, but it's only in the detail that it's different. Nothing exaggerated ever.
AD
Do you ever window shop? Do you ever leaf through magazines?
PM
I do both. I don't have much time to walk past the windows but if I'm in the car you know I do look. Going up to the dentist we go up Regent Street and we come down Regent Street and it's the nice thing about going to the dentist that before I go up I'm looking at the shop windows. When I come down I'm looking in the shop windows to see the colours. I've seen so much of London Fashion Week being advertised.
AD
Can a woman in your position ever be budget conscious or doesn't that really affect you? [end p2]
PM
Yes, oh yes, we have to be budget conscious. But if you think about it I really am on duty the whole time and it's like wearing, for the child her Sunday best. In a way I have to have best clothes seven days a week because I'm seeing people and if ever there was a day when you wore something old and not really very nice that would be time when someone important came in suddenly. But I remember when I was going to Paris for the first time as Prime Minister and I felt that I hadn't anything just quite tailored and chiselled and elegant enough, just dashing along to one of the Regent Street companies—dashing in. And there really are so very few things that actually suit one when you look really with a critical eye. It is very interesting to me that the coat which I bought which was a navy one and which I still have, I said when I bought it: do you know this is the same basic cut as a coat I bought from them ten years ago and it's still one that you can use and wear as elegant.
AD
They don't criticise the men as much though they'll always be looking at your clothes.
PM
No, they don't but they do look at them a little bit you know, if they're not reasonably nicely tailored or if they shamble around. Oh yes, they do. But you have to decide what you're going to spend your money on and that's why I say you have to have some classics and you have to have some things which are nothing like so expensive but you can wear under coats and change more frequently. But you will always have to budget and I was brought up on that so it's nothing new to me.
AD
Prime Minister, it's been a great pleasure talking to you about fashion. Thank you very much.
PM
Thank you very much and I hope we've done something for fashion.