When the real Mrs T met Maggie

The British fashion designer Katharine Hamnett, famous for her 'statement' T-shirts proclaiming 'SAVE AFRICA', 'STOP ACID RAIN', 'USE A CONDOM' etcetera, has been talking about the T that helped make her famous in 1984 - the one she wore to meet Mrs T in Downing Street. It was the year America's controversial Pershing II guided missile was deployed in West Germany.

"We had been invited to meet Margaret Thatcher but, to be honest, I didn't want to go," Hamnett told the Times. "I thought she was dreadful... As Jasper Conran said to me the day before our meeting: 'Why should we go for a glass of warm white wine with that murderess?' - which is one of the greatest lines ever."

But when she thought of the photo opportunity - and the chance to make a statement about Pershing - she had a change of heart. She went to Number Ten with the white T-shirt proclaiming '58% DON'T WANT PERSHING' hidden under her jacket - which she slipped off just before she was introduced to the PM.

"She didn't notice it at first," said Hamnett, "but then she looked down and made a noise like a chicken, then quick as a fishwife she said: 'Oh well we haven't got Pershing here, so maybe you are at the wrong party', which I thought was rather rude as she had invited me."

Mrs T wasn't the only one unimpressed. Hamnett recounts how a team from American Vogue visited her offices in North London. "They walked in, saw the statement T-shirts about world peace and banning nuclear weapons and, without a word, spun on their heels and walked straight out again."