David and Samantha's Boden catalogue look has been replaced by a more severe style
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David and Samantha Cameron after his speech at the Tory conference. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
Austerity begins at home. This is the message from the Cameron wardrobe.
Even allowing for the rise of minimalism in fashion over the past few years, the shift in sartorial tone from the Camerons is noticeable. Funny to think that once upon a time, the easy Cameron joke was that the couple looked as if they had walked out of a Boden catalogue, all breezy open-necked shirts (him) and jaunty colour blocking (her). The look now is much more severe. David Cameron wore an almost identical outfit to last year – down to the purple tie, which now appears to be regulation issue across the political spectrum – but his shirt collar looked tighter and brighter white, his hair flatter and more solid. This was a starch-and-Brylcreem riposte to those back-of-an-envelope-government jibes.
Samantha Cameron wore a blue sleeveless dress (Joseph) with grey belt and shoes (LK Bennett). The colour combination of old-fashioned Tory blue, with accessories in the most popular shade of Tory hair, was chic but safe. The severe lines of the dress emphasising the narrow lines of her silhouette, there was no sign of the wink to fashion she usually adds. The effect was much less jolly than the slightly off-the-wall red horizontal striped Whistles tunic she wore last year, or the Paul Smith floral dress of 2010.
Cameron's early crusade to throw off the nasty-party tag with a cuddly arm-around-the-shoulder Conservatism has been all but abandoned. He made repeated references to Eton and to old-fashioned educational values in a speech he delivered in a stern, headmasterly tone, and looked every bit the part.