In 2011, former prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s Asprey handbag sold for £25,000 at auction. A decade earlier, her Salvatore Ferragamo bag sold for an astonishing £83,000. The stern looking bags mimicked the reserve of the Iron Lady herself, and became iconic in their own right for accompanying her on some of her official business around the world – but what is it about the former prime minister’s bags that is so special?
A lot of it has to do with Baroness Thatcher’s style itself. In the 80s, it was all about power-dressing, and nobody did that better than the PM. In her buttoned-up skirt suits, pussy-bow blouses, low heels, brooches and pearls, and with her trusty, briefcase-like bag in hand, she was ready to face whatever the world would throw at her.
The Asprey bag certainly saw a lot of action. She clutched it firmly while visiting the US president Ronald Reagan and soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the midst of the Cold War, and is known to have carried state papers inside it – adding to its historical value at auction no doubt.
But the bag was far more than an accessory – it was a weapon. She was rumoured to use it to attack cabinet ministers in fits of rage, giving rise to the term ‘handbagging’. The bag was as much a part of her steely reserve as her perfectly coiffed hair, and went a long way in creating her Iron Lady persona.
If anything is a testament to just how important her bags are to understanding her and her form of government, it is that a similar Salvatore Ferragamo handbag is carried by Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady.
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