In 1948, she founded the first fashion course at the Royal College of Art, helping to develop a rigorous academic framework with a strong industry focus.

Robert O'Byrne described Garland as among the female pioneers who: "battled to have fashion design taken more seriously, in particular fighting for academic acknowledgment".

[1] It was in Paris that her lifelong interest in fashion, art and literature was developed, however her parents prevented her from taking up a university place at Cambridge and she left home at 21, beginning her career as an errand girl on Fleet Street.

[3] In 1922, she began assisting at Vogue UK, just after the arrival of its second editor Dorothy Todd, who was shifting the magazine's focus away from society and towards the arts, featuring articles by Clive Bell, Aldous Huxley and Virginia Woolf.

She was married briefly during this period to Captain Ewart Garland but retained the name McHarg until Gertrude Jekyll told her it was dreadful and asked if she had another.

It appears their love affair was widely recognised in some circles as it inspired a parody of Thomas Edward Brown's poem The Garden, which ran: 'A Garland is a lovesome thing, Todd wot'.

[3][6] During this time, Garland developed both her journalism skills and connections with leading writers and artists of the day, such as Rebecca West and Ivy Compton-Burnett – also advising Virginia Woolf on what to wear.

[4] Todd's tenure as Vogue editor lasted four years, but the magazine was losing money and its owner Condé Nast disliked the literary approach.

[1] She would travel to Paris to report on couture fashions by names such as Lucien Lelong and Jacques Fath, staying at the Ritz and taking advantage of the opportunity to buy sale-price items from Schiaparelli and Chanel – she had a mannequin's figure.

[3] In 1947, Garland was invited to become the first professor of fashion at the Royal College of Art by Robin Darwin, taking up the role a year later.

"[9] In an interview for the Victoria and Albert Museum, one of her students Gerald McCann – later to have a long and successful career in the United States as well as Britain – recalled her strong links to industry.

[11] Although Garland had created the framework that would train so many post-war designers, she has been, according to the Royal College of Art, somewhat neglected as a figure in the history of fashion.

[13] The Times noted: "one of her most important achievements has been to bring both to students and manufacturers the understanding that fashion design is not by any means restricted to haute couture and to the creation of ball gowns requiring a hundred yards of tulle and a box of sequins".

These included English novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett, photographer and model Lee Miller, and one of Britain's first female solicitors, Frances Blackett Gill.