Margaret Howell

Born in Surrey in 1946, Margaret Howell studied fine art at Goldsmiths before turning to fashion in the late 1960s, initially producing handmade accessories sold through Browns in London. She launched her menswear shirt line in 1972 and her womenswear collection in 1980, building a quietly radical practice centred on British workwear, military cloth, fisherman's smocks and the unforced tailoring of an Oxford button-down. The label has long maintained its own UK-made supply chain, with a flagship on Wigmore Street in London. In Japan, she developed the more relaxed MHL diffusion line in collaboration with her long-term Japanese partner Anglobal, with its dedicated MHL Tokyo store anchoring the line locally.