How I look after Cherie

Carole Caplin is the "lifestyle guru" credited with transforming Cherie Blair's image. But today she reveals the full extent of the influence she exercises over every aspect of Mrs Blair's public appearance. Caplin plans months in advance precisely how Mrs Blair will look when standing by the Prime Minister's side, from the outfits she wears to the way she climbs in and out of cars, from the colour of her dress to the way it creases.

In a wide-ranging interview spread across nine pages in the latest edition of Hello! magazine, Caplin says the advice she offers her most famous client is "across the board".

Referring to Mrs Blair's recent high-profile appearance during Tony Blair's trip to the Far East, Ms Caplin said: "My planning with Cherie doesn't stop and start. It's an ongoing process, and anything she might be wearing now was planned six months before.

"Each trip has an itinerary and we work out what is going to be appropriate for every event. When people are travelling, you have to take into account climate, getting in and out of cars, colour, creasing and many other things."

Mrs Blair's appearance during the tour in a Diane von Furstenberg outfit, a powder blue coat dress by Paddy Campbell and a Rene Lezard pinstriped dress coat, was widely praised by fashion commentators.

Caplin denied clashing with the PM's chief aide, Alastair Campbell, who is thought to resent the pair's close relationship. "I'm retained by Cherie, not by Downing Street," she said. "But I've never seen anyone there, let alone him (Campbell). Whatever's going on inside there, I'm clueless about."

Although happy to take credit for Mrs Blair's public image, Caplin rather disingenuously denies offering her advice on how to handle the media. "I'm a fitness trainer, a stylist, and for want of a better term, a lifestyle adviser, and none of this encompasses the press," she says. "Media is not my expertise, so let the men play..."

Caplin said the intense media focus on her life following the "Cheriegate" scandal, her miscarriage and her split from Australian con-man Peter Foster, had affected her deeply. She said Foster had been "in floods of tears" when she lost the baby.

"The last seven or eight months have been horrendous and sometimes I feel like sitting on the floor and having a good scream and a shout," she said. "I'm not Miss Perfect or Little Goody-Two Shoes - but neither is it my way to be a victim."