Fashion designer Margaret Howell selects vintage prints from The Council of Industrial Design  

Established by Winston Churchill’s government just before the close of WWII, The Council of Industrial Design (now known as the Design Council), placed design education for Britain at the top of its agenda. Principally supporting economic recovery, it also offered specialist courses and seminars for designers, educators and manufacturers, and produced design folios – black and white snapshots of the latest design that ranged from dinner-trays to dinghies. 

Originally available – subscription only – to schools and colleges, contemporary British fashion brand Margaret Howell has recently selected vintage prints from The University of Brighton Design Archives for its 2019 calendar.

Discussing the photographs, Ms Margaret Howell believes that “These evocative images are from another era but their message is clear and modern in outlook. They recall a time when a devastated post-war Britain had to be rebuilt and it was thought important enough to promote the public awareness of design for its own sake.”

Profits from the sale of the calendar will be donated to Open-City.

Inspired by the prints from The Council of Industrial Design, we take a look at a pair of home-grown menswear brands