What was Theresa May wearing on her wrist?

To say Theresa May‘s keynote speech at the Conservative Party Conference didn’t go as planned would be an understatement.

As she tried to reassert her authority, the PM was first interrupted by a protester brandishing a P45 and then endured multiple coughing fits that were excruciating to watch.

But amid the spluttering and security breaches, many people also picked up on the PM’s odd choice of jewellery.

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Watch the moment Theresa May speech interrupted by protester
PM endures prolonged coughing fit during speech

A picture showing Mrs May swallowing a lozenge also shows her wearing a bracelet adorned with paintings by Frida Kahlo – the Mexican painter and a noted Communist celebrated by many feminists.

Many who did notice were not happy.

Kahlo is one of Mexico’s most famous artists and her largely self-portrait paintings raised questions about Mexican society – particularly gender, race, and social class.

The New York Times wrote of her in an obituary after her death in 1954:

“She was a painter and also had been active in leftist causes. She made her last public appearance in a wheelchair at a meeting in support of the now ousted regime of Communist- backed President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman of Guatemala.”

The New York Review of books outlined her importance as a left-wing figure who gave voice to the voiceless and stood up for vulnerable women:

“According to legend, Tehuana women were the real figures of authority in their society, and Kahlo’s wearing of such outfits was a demonstration of strength and will. Appearing this way in Mexico meant that she was continuously announcing her leftist identification with the underclass (she was in fact an ardent Communist at times), while the same clothes, when she was abroad, might be more purely a hassle or an embarrassment. (In New York, kids ran up to her on the street and asked where the circus was.) Yet Kahlo took to wearing long skirts in the first place to hide her withered leg; and her wearing clothes that symbolized women being in control was belied by her slavish and often bruised relationship with her husband, Diego Rivera.”