MY UNIVERSITY’S LAUNDRYis called St Michael’s, perhaps because the nuns who founded it could turn dirty linen into angelically sparkling raiment. More puzzlingly, for most of the last century, Marks & Spencer sold their wares under the same brand name.
Their first label, introduced in 1928 (shortly before the University of Notre Dame decided it needed its own laundry) showed the prince of heavenly chivalry brandishing a sword and displaying his wings. The St Michael brand was first used for textiles and clothes. Perhaps, therefore, it was something in the archangel’s perfectly blanched purity, or in the brightness and durability of his robes of burnished steel, that made him seem an appropriate icon for marketing knickers and bras. Or perhaps shoppers in the late Twenties wanted their women to look…
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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, August/September 2024