If there’s anyone who is surely in possession of the ideal pandemic-proof collection, it is Margaret Howell. Here it is: Her whole world of utilitarian comfort for women and men, laid out with a perfect sense of economy in the space of 35 pictures. After 50 years in the business—she is quietly celebrating a half-century—her perfectionist dedication to designing clothes with a purpose could hardly be more calmingly relevant to the predicament we find ourselves in today.
In one sense, this season’s offerings don’t look terribly different from the last, or any other, come to that. That’s intrinsic to the beauty of what she does: her concentration on making clothes that fit continuously into the background of lived experience, stoically allowing the bandwagon of fashion to pass her by. Yet her work is also a study in incremental change. Here you can pick it up: a slight tendency toward a bracing sense of military uniform, the totally contemporary idea that these garments are mostly genderless.
A shared wardrobe for people who are probably working from home, living a life of local shopping and markets interspersed with walks in the country—well, how many of us will identify with that now? For that great social readjustment, Margaret Howell has all the answers.
