Margaret Barbour

Dame Margaret Barbouris a British businesswoman and philanthropist best known as the current Chairman of J. Barbour & Sons.

Together with her daughter, Helen Barbour, she established the Women's Fund in 1999 to encourage and support women within Tyne & Wear and Northumberland to develop their full potential. In 2000, in memory of her mother in law, Barbour set up The Nancy Barbour Award, an award within the Women's Fund that recognises organisations helping women to play a more active part in the community, particularly those who work with a disability.

Business background

A teacher originally, she is credited as "having reinvented the waterproof wax clothes firm, J. Barbour & Sons". She turned the company's rustic clothes, initially designed for seamen, river workers, motorcyclists and Royal Navy submariners, into "a fashion accessory for the 1980s Sloane Rangers and the British upper-class country set."

She then turned the rural brand into an international urban fashion icon in the 40 countries where it is represented through the company's local offices and network of retailers and distributors.