Hillary Clinton: handbags are a 'uniter of women'

The US Secretary of State also posed for photographs for US Harper's Bazaar in her outfit of choice, a mannish trouser suit, in the department's Benjamin Franklin Room. Mrs Clinton took the hardest knock of her career when losing the Democratic nomination for president to Barack Obama, but she has, many say, flourished in the role of Secretary of State. "This is a non political job," she tells the magazine. "I'm not in the fray the way that I was, and that gives you a certain sort of safe haven, even though much of what I do is by nature difficult and in some quarters controversial." The article calls Mrs Clinton "as much a den mother as a diplomat" and describes how she took her shaken team to a local bar after Richard Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, died in December. In an unusual turn, she is frank about her fashion choices. "I do love a good handbag, " she says. "I think [accessories] could be either a great divider or uniter. I'm on the uniter side. I think no one should make fun of anyone else's handbag choices. "I have this Ferragamo hot-pink bag that I adore. My view was that I would carry it around only in spring, but it makes me so happy, I'm even now lugging it around in January. I mean, how can you be unhappy if you pick up a big pink bag?"