NEW YORK, United States —  While the new, fey masculinity, epitomised by Alessandro Michele's Gucci, continues to make headlines in menswear, its inverse, which could be called butch femininity, is hardly new. In the 1980s, and during the suffragette movement long before, power dressing helped pave this well-travelled road. Yet there is a surprising amount of mannish tailoring for bare-faced, stompy-footed ladies on the London runways this season.

Margaret Howell has always been there. She has a distinctive take on the theme: sophisticated yet rustic and usually poetic, with whiffs of the English countryside all around. Think tweeds, sturdy brogues and a general emphasis on texture and matte surfaces. The collection she presented today was just another chapter of the story. Blazers got shorter and boxier, and so did trousers, while flat bowties — halfway between schoolboy and dandy — appeared prominently, even with rather dowdy sack-dresses. All in all, the collection was respectable and did not lack for covetable pieces — the coats and duffel coats, in particular, looked fresh. But, overall, the offering was a tad too repetitive and lacked the poetry that normally elevates her work.