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Museum rejects offer to exhibit Thatcher clothes
Posted On Nov 07 2015
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Notable items include her 1951 wedding outfit-estimated to sell between 10,000 to 15,000 pounds ($15,000 to $23,000)- and red embossed dispatch box used during her time as Prime Minister.
John Whittingdale, the Culture Secretary and a former Parliamentary aide to Lady Thatcher, told The Telegraph: “Lady Thatcher took enormous care over what she wore and was always keen to promote British fashion”.
The items are being sold by her children, Sir Mark and Carol, and the proceeds will be split between them and the late Lady Thatcher’s grandchildren. She also played a significant role, while serving as prime minister, in its elevation to the status of the UK’s first private university in 1983.
Shame the V&A has turned down Thatcher’s personal collection.
It is not clear how much of a crossover there is between the items offered to the V&A and those now up for sale.
The auctioneer said Tuesday that 150 lots will go under the hammer December 15 in London, with a further 200 sold by online auction. “I for one would have loved to see it!”
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London turned down the chance to showcase more than 300 personal and political possessions of the former Tory MP, saying it was only interested in items of “outsanding aesthetic or technical quality”.
Along with her monetary policy, Margaret Thatcher had an image that was hard, harsh, and intimidating, a perception reinforced-or perhaps even cultivated-by how she dressed.
A V&A spokesman said: “We were asked a question yesterday about an informal discussion that happened several years ago and responded accordingly”.
A statement from the museum said that “that these records of Britain’s political history were best suited to another collection which would focus on their intrinsic social historical value”.
Thatcher’s boxy handbags and Aquascutum skirt suits were an integral part of her “Iron Lady” look during her tenure, and she became well-known for her term “handbag economics”, which was all about living within one’s means.
