perfectly scripted; Whether she's the Smythson supremo or a British political wife, Samantha Cameron stays true to her message.

Byline: Mark Holgate

Samantha Cameron, Smythson creative director and Tory wife, may seem an unlikely candidate to live by the words of Mae West-"Keep a diary and someday it will keep you"-but keeping and designing diaries has for a decade been the livelihood of one of Britain's liveliest political spouses. (She's married to Tory leader David Cameron.) Ten years ago, shortly after Cameron joined Smythson, she came up with

the hugely successful Fashion Diary: an elegant, classic datebook with listings of cool boutiques, restaurants, and bars around the world, printed on the company's trademark featherweight gilt-edged, pale-blue paper. Now, to celebrate both her and the diary's anniversary with the stationery-and-leather-goods company, Cameron invited four designers-Zac Posen in New York, Angela Missoni in Milan, Alexander McQueen in London, and Giambattista Valli in Paris-to create covers for the 2007 edition.

While Smythson continues to produce many new things in many new colors, like teal leather jewelry boxes, olive-green clutches with gold chains, and pink Bibles, it's that diary that's the perfect emblem of what Cameron thinks Smythson should be: somewhere between hip insider and upholder of blue-chip British values, as befits a 120-year-old company with four royal warrants. "In a sense, we're the fashion world's stationers," she says one October London morning, sitting in the boardroom in the company HQ at 40 New Bond Street. "Smythson is for people who don't want the latest logo. They're looking for something a little more discreet."

Discretion is indeed a priority for Cameron. Her rising public profile comes at a time when Smythson is pursuing a radical global expansion, with plans for more stores in the United States-joining the existing flagship in New York City-as her husband is moving to rebrand the identity of his Conservative Party. The designer has no desire to conflate her own status with that of the company she works for. "I think Smythson is the face of Smythson," she says firmly. "It's not about me. And for both personal and professional reasons, that's as it should be."

You can't blame her for taking that position. The British tabloids have been quick to claim that her husband's drive to present a more centrist, less elitist Tory party to the world doesn't sit too well with Smythson's raison d'etre: cameron's rich wife flogs U[pounds sterling]6k alligator-skin jewellery boxes, crowed the Sunday Mirror. The press have also delighted in reporting that the designing Cameron is the daughter of Sir Reginald Sheffield, owner of the Sutton Park estate.

Yet while Cameron deeply believes in protecting Smythson's glorious patrician past, she presents herself as a typical modern, class-spanning Briton: To the Conservative Party Conference in October, she ...