Women in public life, as the recent intense coverage of the hairstyles of Theresa May, Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel and Nicola Sturgeon reveals, are subject to particular attention regarding their appearance (for those who don’t keep up with this kind of thing, they all have a version of the pob, short for political bob). When Sally Axworthy takes up her post as Britain’s ambassador to the Holy See in the next few weeks, her appearance will mark a first: she will be the first female British ambassador to wear a diplomatic uniform overseas, although the Foreign Office first introduced diplomatic uniforms for women in 2013 as a mark of equality.