London - Every Lady Thatcher impersonator - from the late Janet Brown to current celluloid embodiment Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady - knows that her performance relies on three elements: the voice, artfully honeyed with strains of the harridan; the hair, that unswayable bouffant halo; and the handbag, a rigid, top- handled bag/battering ram.
For if Lady Thatcher was a warrior queen in the style of Boadicea or Elizabeth I, then her handbag was herweapon.
Indeed, such was the Baroness’s symbolic association with her reticule, that the term ‘handbagging’ entered the Oxford English Dictionary to convey the PM’s aggressive approach to those who dared thwart her.
Oft attributed to the late Tory MP Sir Julian Critchley, it was invoked most memorably by his colleague Nicholas Ridley, who once waggishly declared in her absence: “Why don’t we start? The handbag is here.”
To some extent, Maggie’s arm candy was simply practical: not for Mrs T the policy-revealing pieces of paper amateurishly clutched by today’s ministers.
As her former Chief of Staff, political novelist Michael Dobbs, has observed, said apparatus was “in part a portable filing cabinet, but was also used to remind people of her power”.
Lady Thatcher’s bag-brandishing took what had been a twee object of femininity and transformed it into a glorious theatrical device.
John Whittingdale, her Political Secretary from 1989 to 1992, noted its staginess. “It was a prop,” he said. “She would produce it very visibly at big meetings to show she meant business.”
Last summer, Christie’s auctioned an immaculate 30-year-old Margaret Thatcher Asprey number for £25,000 (about R300 000). However, it is Midlands-based brand Launer that will be forever associated with her.
Doubtless, the lower-middle-class Mrs T was influenced by Launer being bag-maker to the Queen, who is rarely spotted without one of its top-handled bags and who awarded the firm her royal warrant. The company will also refurbish its wares, which will have appealed to the nation’s most fearsomely thrifty housewife.
Launer’s Walsall factory is the last great relic of the Midlands’s once flourishing leather industry. Operations take place on a diminutive scale, meaning that even its “off-the-peg” creations are handmade.
In a hectic week, a team of 15 or so make 20 handbags (from £394). However, they can turn one around in 48 hours should a VIP demand it.
Over Christmas and New Year, with publicity around Meryl Streep’s performance in The Iron Lady gathering pace, Launer reported a 59 per cent sales increase in its black, boxier styles, the most popular being the aptly-entitled Diva - the Iron Lady’s bludgeon of choice.
Thatcher also dabbled with the brand’s less formal styles, such as the fold-over style she was photographed quitting a plane with in 1981.
Gerald Bodmer, owner and creative director of Launer, attributes the sales surge of what he refers to as “Thatcher bags” to a younger, international audience “seeking a contemporary twist on investment pieces”.
“It’s a huge pleasure to see Lady Thatcher’s relationship with Launer endure nearly 30 years after it began,” he says. “And it’s a real testament to the heritage of the brand that both she and the Queen have worn Launer bags as symbols of ‘Britishness’.”
Less stately women may not see the allure. The Queen may be besotted, but Diana, Princess of Wales, notably, was not. The Duchess of Cambridge, meanwhile, has advertised her down-to-earth, non-establishment credentials by eschewing Launer for High Street clutches.
It will be interesting to see whether the brand eventually holds sway as she continues to be absorbed into the fold.
Kate’s step-mother-in-law Camilla has certainly toed the line - and very chic she looks, too.
However, no one brandished a bag quite like Margaret Thatcher. And it is no coincidence that the Iron Lady’s icon should return to us when we are once again beset by recession.
For after the boom-time craze for so many slouchy, extortionate ‘It’ bags, women are looking for structured, investment pieces - and nothing says this better than a top-handled bag.
This is no party-girl clutch grasped defensively to one’s body; it is the ultimate power-bag.
Prada’s rectangular incarnation with gold decor (£1,595) is pure Thatcher; it was recently sported by actress Kate Bosworth in a manner that instantly upgraded her insouciant LA guise.
Mulberry - bastion of unstructured arm candy - has introduced the Harriet as its new style (from £850). Its website boasts of the Harriet’s “up-town styling” and ‘”rown-up glamour” - for which read, “could cut it at number 10”.
Smythson’s Agatha might be interpreted as SamCam’s contemporary tribute to her Downing Street forebear (from £700). Gucci, D&G, Marni, Lanvin and even the Olsen twins - the spring-chickenish trendsters behind The Row - have all followed suit with top-handled bags.
For my money, I’d rather go with Lady Thatcher and bag myself a Launer. - Daily Mail