Revered British fashion designer Margaret Howell is moving her main UK manufacturing site to a revitalised former textiles warehouse hub in north London.
The 79 year old veteran, whose fans include presenter and influencer Alexa Chung, has taken on three newly built units across 24,000 sq ft on a ten year lease at Florentia Village in Harringay.
Her company, Margaret Howell Ltd, has become known for its classic minimalist, and utilitarian style since it started in 1970.
Princess Diana famously wore a white tuxedo suit by the designer to a Genesis concert in 1984, while Jack Nicholson sported a Margaret Howell red corduroy windcheater jacket in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film The Shining.
The business currently has a flagship store in Marylebone with other London outlets in Fulham, Kings Cross and Richmond as well as Paris, Florence and Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan.
Last year Margaret Howell made a pre-tax loss of just over £1million on sales of £18.3 million.
Florentia Village became known in the 1970s as a hub for clothes manufacturing in Harringay’s Warehouse District.
The site was bought in 2021 by property investor and developer General Projects, which since refurbished the 90,000 sq ft of existing space and added an extension to more than double its size on 1.5 acres of vacant land.
The extension will add 100,000 sq ft of workspace to the site, which is due to complete by the end of the year.
The development, designed by Hackney based architects Turner.Works, provides work spaces ranging from 500 to 15,000 sq. ft, as well as including a café, community spaces and a courtyard garden. Around 40 businesses are already based there.
Margaret Howell Ltd’s managing director Caroline Attwood said:”Florentia has a long history of being an area of creativity and manufacturing.”
Jacob Loftus, CEO of General Projects, said: “Welcoming Margaret Howell to Florentia Village is a powerful statement about the kind of creative energy we’re developing here.
“From the start of this project, it was really important that we find a way to celebrate the history of this key part of north London’s industrial past while revitalising it for a new generation. “
