In 1951, a 27-year-old woman named Althea McNish relocated from Trinidad to London with a scholarship to the prestigious Architectural Association in Bedford Square. But when faced with the realities of a seven-year degree and the seven gruelling winters that she would therefore spend living as a student, McNish changed tack: enrolling on a print course at the London School of Printing and Graphic Arts before embarking on a postgraduate degree from the Royal College of Art. It was there she developed a print based on the wheat fields of Essex – its tall shafts “tropicalised” against a backdrop of sun-baked oranges – that would soon become one of the most popular textiles of the post-war period.
Then along came commissions from Liberty, Heals, Christian Dior and the late Queen Elizabeth II: a string of co-signs that have placed McNish among Britain’s most established artists. Grace Wales Bonner and Bianca Saunders are among a number of contemporary designers who credit McNish – and the broader wave of Caribbean dressmakers and tailors that moved to the UK in the mid-1900s – with inspiring their own practice. (Bonner’s spring/summer 2025 collection featured that same wheatsheaf print on camp collar shirts and hip-slung skirts, while Saunders crafted a garment made up of a 16-layer silkscreen print in response to McNish’s oeuvre last summer.
) And then there’s Martine Rose , Saul Nash , Maximilian Davis , Jawara Alleyne , Taya Francis , Nicholas Daley , Ed Men.