"Love Of Symmetry": How Angela Merkel's Rhombus Hand Gesture Became A Brand

Angela Merkel's gesture has its own Wikipedia page, its own emoticon, "", and the longtime German leader has even been immortalised adopting the pose at London's famous Madame Tussauds waxworks museum.

Hands resting in front of the stomach, thumbs and fingertips touching to form a diamond shape -- Angela Merkel's "rhombus" hand gesture was her most recognisable trademark.

The gesture has its own Wikipedia page, its own emoticon, "", and the longtime German leader has even been immortalised adopting the pose at London's famous Madame Tussauds waxworks museum.

But the "Merkel-Raute", as it is known in German, became her signature largely by accident -- born from a camera-shy Merkel being unsure how to pose during a photo shoot for Stern magazine in 2002.

Then head of the Christian Democrats (CDU) but still three years away from being elected as chancellor for the first time, Merkel "didn't know what to do with her hands", photographer Claudia Kempf later recalled.