Draft:Marion Donaldson (Fashion Label)

The Marion Donaldson fashion label was founded in Glasgow in 1966 by David and Marion Donaldson.  The couple met at Glasgow University in 1964 and moved to London the following year. There Marion taught young children in Hackney and David worked for a while in Liberty’s Regent Street store.  When they heard that artist Alasdair Gray, a family friend, was moving out of his large top flat in Hill Street, Glasgow, they took over the tenancy, quit their jobs and returned to their native city at Easter.  Marion got her first order for purple bell-bottom trousers the very next day from In Gear Boutique in Gibson Street.

Neither Marion nor David had any formal training in art and design but Marion’s mother was a trained tailoress and a skilled dressmaker whilst David came from an artistic family: his father David A Donaldson was head of Drawing & Painting at Glasgow School of Art and his mother Katy Gardiner was an illustrator and playwright. The Marion Donaldson logo was designed by David who also did all the graphics for the company.  Overwhelmed by demand, they began to use local sewing factories within a few months.  

In 1968 they were evicted from Hill Street to make way for the M8 motorway and relocated to Peel Street in Partick, Glasgow.  A year later they opened an office and warehouse in 73 Robertson Street, an A-listed building in the Art Nouveau style.  Soon they had sales agents covering the whole of the United Kingdom.  By 1976 the growth of the business obliged them to move into three floors of 27 Brown Street, Glasgow and to enlarge the factory in Robertson Street. David became seriously ill with Sarcoidosis in 1981 and, before he had fully recovered, the Brown Street building was irreparably  damaged by fire on the 16th November 1982.  The loss of fabric stock and finished garments threatened to wipe them out but with the help of their textile suppliers they were able to keep going. They found new premises in 93 Candleriggs in the renovated Merchant City area of Glasgow.  Liberty prints had always featured strongly in their collections and they were invited to operate ‘Marion Donaldson’ concessions in all of the regional Liberty shops.

By the 1990s the number of independent retailers in the U.K. was dwindling so the company began exporting to Norway, Sweden and Russia.  A more intractable problem was that most of the skilled sewing machinists in the Glasgow area were nearing retirement and very few younger women had entered the trade in the previous thirty years. Marion Donaldson Ltd ceased trading in 2000, having paid all its creditors in full.  

Dr Jade Halbert began researching the company archives in December 2014 for her PhD thesis ‘Marion Donaldson and the business of British fashion 1966-1999’ and over the course of the next three years conducted regular recorded interviews with David and Marion Donaldson.  

The Fashion and Textile Museum held an exhibition of Liberty Art Fabrics & Fashion in 2018.  Several Marion Donaldson designs were featured and the Donaldsons also took part in the programme of seminars.  When the exhibition transferred to the Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh, the ‘In conversation with David & Marion Donaldson’ event proved very popular.

There is a permanent display of Marion Donaldson designs in The Riverside Museum, Glasgow.