Former education secretary Nicky Morgan has admitted her comments about Theresa May's leather trousers were "too personal".
The Tory MP criticised the Prime Minister for choosing to appear in the designer legwear in a newspaper photo-shoot.
Mrs Morgan had expressed doubts about the £1,000 Amanda Wakeley "bitter chocolate" trousers, saying she always judged such matters by how she would explain it in Loughborough market.
The comments caused a bitter spat with Fiona Hill, one of Mrs May's chiefs of staff, and led to the former Cabinet minister being blocked from a Brexit meeting.
Mrs Morgan told BBC Two's Newsnight: "Let me just say on the issue that arose before Christmas, look, sometimes in politics feelings run high and things get too personal.
"That was not a good place for any of us, me, to be, and the Conservative Party, before Christmas.
"I just think that sometimes you say things and it doesn't really actually get to the heart of the issues that people want you to discuss."