Today a Topshop skirt became embroiled in a Twitter argument after journalist Tom Newton Dunn labelled Labour MP Stella Creasy ‘bold’ for wearing a ‘bright blue PVC skirt’ in the House of Commons.

Creasy – wearing the skirt with a white blouse and black blazer – was addressing David Cameron during this afternoon’s Prime Minister’s Questions, where she invited him to comment on the No More Page 3 campaign to end The Sun’s daily bit of, ahem, titillation.

Responding with statistics on youth employment, Cameron side-stepped the question and quickly moved on, but Newton Dunn, the political editor of The Sun, took to Twitter wondering whether the Topshop skirt influenced Creasy’s question-making capacity. The ‘bold’ skirt somehow made her argument less cogent, he seemed to suggest.

Boldly, @stellacreasy has just asked the PM to justify Page 3 - while wearing a bright blue PVC skirt in the Commons chamber.

— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) December 11, 2023

For starters Tom, we’re calling it vinyl now – or cire if we’re feeling posh. Creasy’s skirt is likely to have been influenced by the autumn 2013 Prada, JW Anderson and Meadham Kirchhoff collections. Since those shows, the high street has seen a proliferation of vinyl and many of us – Stella Creasy, more than a couple of us in this office – have bought into the trend. It’s inexpensive, it’s durable and it’s fun – but of course it has also been associated with sex, and the type of wipe-clean costumes that come with term ‘naughty’ in their title.

These dual associations – sex and fashion – seem to have blown TND’s mind. He has clapped eyes on the PVC pencil skirt and deemed it to be unacceptable attire for a female politician who wishes to pose a question relating to the portrayal of semi-nude young women in the media.

So what should a politician wishing to effect change in how women are presented on the pages of newspapers wear, according to Tom? Is wool suitably demure? How does he feel about linen? 

It’s a natural impulse to discuss people’s outfits, to search for meaning in appearances, some people (including me) even make a living out of it, but it is brainless and inane to conflate a woman’s choice of clothing – Stella Creasy’s skirt, Theresa May’s kitten heels, Hillary Clinton’s trouser suits, Margaret Thatcher’s handbag – with her ideology or her opinions, whether she’s a politician or not.