Margaret Meades trained at Manchester College of Art, where she later taught for many years, helping to nurture a new generation of designers. A member of the Society of Industrial Artists, she was also a successful textile designer for Horrockses Fashions. Her prolific output as a textile artist is reflected in the many surviving designs now held in the Glasgow Women’s Library. Margaret ran her own art studio before retiring to the Highlands of Scotland.

This Horrockses Fashions shirtwaister dress was created to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. Its textile design is composed of the handwritten words “Elizabeth Regina 1953,” repeated densely across the fabric.

While many commemorative textiles were produced to celebrate the coronation, often in the form of souvenir items such as tea towels, this design transforms a celebratory message into a refined repeating pattern, demonstrating how skilled textile designers could translate contemporary events into sophisticated fashion fabrics.