LONDON — Brian Godbold, who turned Marks & Spencer into a fashion force on the U.K. high street and supported young talent as deputy chair of the British Fashion Council, has died aged 82.
Godbold, who studied fashion at Royal College of Art, believed that good-quality stylish clothing should be available to all, and used his role as design director at M&S to burnish the image of the store and bolster its fashion profile.
He worked at M&S from 1977 to 1997, and was responsible for men’s, women’s and children’s wear as well as home. In that role, he championed affordable fashion at a time when high street fast-fashion giants such as Zara, H&M and Uniqlo had yet to gain traction in the U.K.
According to friends and former colleagues, Godbold fought many battles at M&S — often behind closed doors, and always in his low-key way — to make his fashion vision a reality.
He succeeded. On Godbold’s watch M&S became one of the first U.K. retailers to bring in well-known designers as consultants to the buyers and in-house design teams.
He hired Paul Smith to consult on menswear and Betty Jackson to do the same with women’s. He also collaborated with designers including Julien Macdonald and Orla Kiely.
After leaving M&S in 1997, Godbold became deputy chair of the British Fashion Council. In that role, he persuaded his former employer to fund the New Generation Designers program, now known as Newgen.
Godbold described the program, which over the years has supported scores of designers and labels including Alexander McQueen, JW Anderson, Kim Jones and Grace Wales Bonner, as “our way of putting money back into the industry. We have always supported British fashion,” he said in 1999.
That BFC Newgen program continues to thrive. The labels currently taking part include A Letter, Aaron Esh, Pauline Dujancourt, Steve O Smith and Tolu Coker.
Last Thursday, at the start of London Fashion Week, King Charles visited the Newgen exhibition space at 180 Studios and attended Tolu Coker’s show.
In later years, Godbold would become a non-executive director for the successful clothing and accessories line George at Asda. He was also served as director of his husband’s eponymous knitwear business, Ramon Gurillo Ltd.
In 2007, Godbold was awarded an OBE, or Officer of the Order of the British Empire honor, from Queen Elizabeth for services to fashion design.
Kim Winser, who worked with Godbold at M&S and who went on to become CEO of Pringle and Aquascutum and who founded the eponymous clothing brand, said Godbold was an “inspirational, talented gentleman who liked to push design boundaries.”
She said they worked closely in early ’90s to make M&S more fashionable. In addition to Smith and Jackson, they also partnered with Bruce Oldfield and Yasmin Lebon. “The market and customers loved it. I’m glad our business paths met,” said Winser.
Virginia James, another former colleague from M&S, who now teaches fashion at the London School of Film, Media and Design, part of the University of West London, said she first met Godbold in the ’80s when she was a fashion student at Kingston School of Art. She later worked for him at M&S.
“Brian was kind, generous, and had a remarkable ability to recognize people’s strengths. Stylish, graceful, and effortlessly modern, Brian exemplified a refined sense of design — seen even in his all‑white garden and the quiet precision of his perfectly sharpened pencils. He truly understood style,” James said.
She added: “Thank you, Brian, for encouraging individuality, recognizing talent, and guiding so many of us with such grace.”
Daniel Marks, the longtime fashion PR who now has his own consultancy, Townhouse, said Godbold got him his first job at Vogue in the ’80s “and later encouraged me to work abroad, fundamentally changing my career. He was decent, kind, always available for advice and quietly, exceptionally stylish.”
Marks said Godbold “loved fashion, believed it should be democratic and built M&S into a fashion destination in the ’80s and ’90s. Brian was and always will be an incredible mentor.” Godbold is survived by Gurillo, and by his wider family.