Perhaps more than any other individual in the whirling sphere of fashion, Margareta van den Bosch catapulted high-low dressing.

As H&M’s first design director, she led the Swedish chain’s collaborations with leading designers starting with Karl Lagerfeld in 2004. But even in retirement, when many would be basking in their accomplishments, van den Bosch prefers to share the spotlight with the many co-workers that helped to accelerate design at H&M. The just-out book “Team Maggan: H&M’s First Design Director and Coworkers on Fashion, People and Possibilities” takes a wide view of that with personal testimonies that show the diversity of roles, functions and processes at play.

During an interview at the Soho Grand Hotel in New York Friday, van den Bosch, who is known as “Maggan,” spoke of the current state of fashion two years after she stepped away from working.  While live fashion shows are a plus, she noted how there are more influencers than journalists attending the runway shows. “It’s a new world. You just have to accept it,” she said. “It’s more accessible. People probably prefer it like this.”

Asked if the accessibility of fashion increased consumption, van den Bosch said, “Accessibility can be inspiration for everybody instead of everybody in the same look. More people are interested in fashion than ever before. Before, it was more of one group.”

The book’s author and former H&M staffer Catarina Midby noted how individuals can choose their own fashion inspiration, versus having trends dictated by editors or anyone. And younger consumers are big on resale, often buying garments that they will wear for a stretch and then sell online. “It’s not like before when you bought a coat and wore it until it fell apart,” Midby said. “It’s different.”

Domestic resale is expected to increase from more than $200 billion to an estimated $306.5 billion — a 34 percent gain — by the end of this decade, according to the 2025 Recommerce Report by OfferUp in partnership with data analytics firm GlobalData. Gen Z is helping to boost those figures.

Recalling how when van den Bosch finished at Beckmans College of Design around 1965, the focus was on specific skirt lengths, and she praised how the fact that designers can be more free leads to more novelty. From her viewpoint, men’s fashion is more exciting. So much so, that she really enjoys the men’s shows with Dior’s last go-round being a favorite. Wearing striped black track pants and an oversized blue buttoned-down shirt with a colorful silk scarf, she said, “I also like to dress a little more masculine. I like men’s clothes.”

The pair visited “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and they left impressed. Van den Bosch hopes that the exhibition will inspire people and also prompt more exhibitions along those lines. Although some men might take longer to adapt to fashion, she said you can see how young men are into fashion. “We should explore more about men’s fashion and inspire them to be more daring through everything — media and exhibitions. People like fashion exhibitions. They are very popular,” she said.

Midby added, “they are something that everyone can understand in culture, but it also depends on how you make them. This one at [The Met] was obviously super good.”

While working as a fashion editor at Damernas Värld before joining H&M, Midby approached the company to inform them that the magazine wanted to honor van den Bosch as “designer of the year.” She said, “That was a little bit avant garde at the time, because H&M was like a big high street company and normally we give the design award to a designer. Margareta said, ‘Oh thank you so much, but it’s not just me. This whole team has made this collection together,” Midby said.

In 2001, H&M staged a runway show with 40 of the world’s top models including Grace Jones, who opened and closed it in front of a crowd of 550 members of the media in Dalhalla, Sweden.

In the full fiscal year ended Nov. 30, 2024, sales fell 1 percent to 234.48 billion kronor, or $21.33 billion, while in local currencies they increased by 1 percent, with around 30 percent of transactions taking place online.

Although van den Bosch did not share Midby’s keenness in a biography about her life, once she retired from H&M, Midby felt that the timing was prime to do something. The author suggested that the premise would not just be about van den Bosch, but also the creative team and the guest designers that H&M has worked with. “That was the way to make M agree to do it,” she said.

“Many people had asked me to do a biography and I said no. Also, we had worked together so we had a very nice relationship. She knew everything so we wouldn’t have to start at the beginning. It’s not only the designers, but the marketing people and other creative people. We all worked together,” van den Bosch said.