Victoria Starmer has taken part in a London fashion week show, in one of her first public appearances since her husband, Keir Starmer, stepped down as prime minister.
Lady Starmer appeared at Sunday’s Edeline Lee show. The London-based, Canadian British designer’s clothes are a favourite of the Princess of Wales, and have also been worn by celebrities including singer Taylor Swift and actor and screenwriter Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
Lee’s spring/summer 2027 show took place in the unusual setting of a north London school sports hall. Starmer wore a bright turquoise knitted midi dress with a high neckline, pleated detailing and short, sculptural sleeves, paired with white block-heeled shoes, with her hair worn in loose waves.
Rather than preparations for the show taking place backstage in the usual way, in Lee’s unique show, models were fitted and adjusted in full view of the audience, dancers rehearsed beside the catwalk, while a drone followed proceedings from the high ceiling of the gymnasium.
Starmer was photographed having her makeup done beside the catwalk, against a backdrop of a football net, with makeup and hair products spread out over a table in front of her. Ballerinas stretched beside the catwalk and synchronised swimming-inspired dancers performed in bright red costumes as part of the show, in the school in Chalk Farm.
The collection was based on the Greek myth of Sisyphus, in which a man is condemned to push a boulder uphill, only for it to roll back down again each time he reaches the top.
“There’s a general feeling right now of relentlessness, a sisyphean cycle,” Lee said. “I was already thinking about the ballet – dance is incredibly transporting, but the work behind it is so intense, the way dancers train for years, the endless repetition, for one ecstatic moment of performance, and then they’re back in the studio.
“I wanted to acknowledge the rigour and hard work behind that moment – much like the skill and artistry required of my team to present beautiful clothes.”
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Throughout Keir Starmer’s time in office, Lady Starmer kept a low public profile, but her “political chic” and “modern British” sense of style was often admired. She has favoured contemporary British brands, including ME+EM, Needle & Thread, and Edeline Lee, whose main creative design studio is based in east London.
At London fashion week’s spring/summer shows in 2024, when her husband was prime minister, Lady Starmer took a front-row seat at Edeline Lee’s show, which took place at Millbank Tower, a former campaign HQ of Labour and the Conservatives, where Reform UK’s central office is now based.
She wore a borrowed £615 cream pussy-bow blouse with a navy polka dot print and matching £715 wide-leg trousers.
It came amid a row over free clothes for Lady Starmer, with Keir Starmer facing an investigation at the time over a possible breach of parliamentary rules around gifts.
He had failed to declare that some of his wife’s designer clothes had been bought for her by his biggest personal donor, Lord Alli. The Sunday Times reported that the Labour peer had paid for a personal shopper, clothes and alterations before and after Starmer became prime minister.
