Theresa May's former adviser has revealed how "Trousergate" almost never was, with the Prime Minister originally planning to wear her own clothes for the interview.
Mrs May came under fire last November when she posed for a photo shoot wearing £995 brown leather trousers.
But before the Sunday Times interview, she had allegedly told Katie Perrior, then director of communications at 10 Downing Street, that while she would appreciate hair and make-up, she would bring her own clothes.
However after intervention from her chief of staff Fiona Hill, Mrs May ended up in the Amanda Wakeley trousers which led to much criticism.
In a tell-all account in The Times Magazine, Ms Perrior blamed Ms Hill and joint chief of staff Nick Timothy for the PM's "downfall".
Describing how Trousergate came about, Ms Perrior claimed that on the night before the interview Ms Hill had accused her of not preparing the PM for it.
She said: "I then overheard Hill on the phone to the designer Amanda Wakeley, begging her to send over a van full of clothes the next morning for the PM to choose from.
"I was told by Hill that it was a big mistake to take the PM at her word with regards to her clothes - stupid me.
"All went well until later, when one of my colleagues popped into my office to tell me that we may have a problem: did I know the outfit the PM finally chose cost two grand?
"And there lies the story of the brown leather trousers she was wearing in the shoot. I hit the roof. This was a PR screw-up that was wholly avoidable.
"I didn't even like the bloody trousers - they were the wrong kind of brown, if you know what I mean."
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