Design
We ask a tastemaker what they are reading, watching, listening to and downloading
Fashion designer Margaret Howell tells us about her current favourite books, songs, and travel destinations in My cultural life, while Jeremiah Goodman, the American artist with an eye for interiors, is this month’s Style icon
Fashion designer Margaret Howell is a fervent supporter of British Modernist design; her London store has staged exhibitions of Ercol furniture and in September she launched two new colours for the ‘Type 75’ lamp, created in collaboration with Anglepoise (@margarethowell; margarethowell.co.uk)
The song that makes me feel instantly happy is Ike and Tina Turner’s River Deep, Mountain High ( 3). I love the energy of its Motown sound, which takes me straight back to all those raw teenage emotions. I’m currently reading Leanne Shapton’s Swimming Studies ( 2; Penguin, £12.99). I’ve always been a keen swimmer, so it’s a special pleasure. She conveys the discipline, rituals and rigour of Olympic training, but also gives us eccentric digressions and surprises. For example, for her own recreational swimming, she relaxes by wearing pieces from her collection of vintage swimming costumes, which are lovingly illustrated in the book. Music has always been important to me – since the early days listening to Radio Caroline and The Rolling Stones ( 6) performing at Eel Pie Island. But I like challenges as well as the familiar, and it was a great pleasure when a friend took me to Wigmore Hall for a concert of Bartók, Ligeti and Kurtág. The work of these Hungarian composers might seem ‘difficult’, but I found it exciting and full of energy. The last exhibition I saw was ‘Evelyn Dunbar: The Lost Works’ at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. I like the intimacy of small out-of-town galleries, and would rank Dunbar alongside Stanley Spencer and Eric Ravilious. My favourite film is Wim Wenders’ Pina, his 2011 documentary about choreographer Pina Bausch ( 4). It is so visually powerful; I can watch it repeatedly. Bausch’s choreography is, for me, the best of modern dance, integrating music, costume, location and movement.
A free day in London would combine a bike ride to swim in my local lido, a walk along the north bank of the River Thames ( 7) and an exhibition. Or, for something rather different, I’d meet my daughter and granddaughter for lunch or tea at the Garden Museum near Lambeth Bridge. I’d then head home via the Thames Clippers river bus to Greenwich, but if I was really indulging myself, I’d have dinner first at the Soho restaurant Great Queen Street. My favourite quote is from Berthold Lubetkin, the post-war Russian émigré architect: ‘Nothing is too good for ordinary people.’ He built some great private and council housing in Britain as well as the imaginative, now sadly unused Penguin Pool at London Zoo. I have two favourite destinations. Alvar Aalto’s house in Helsinki ( 5) and the Shetland Islands ( 1). I love more or less everything that Aalto designed. I own one of his original, now battered, ‘60’ stools, and a glass jug and tumblers designed by his wife Aino. I was invited to the Shetlands years ago and was inspired by the colours of the landscape. I’d love to go back and explore further.