Haute couture
After university he worked as a History teacher for a few years and later moved to teach in Italy. He eventually lost interest in this and worked as an actor, appearing in several episodes of BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers and TV bit-parts as a generic foreigner. His social life brought him into contact with people in the fashion industry – and he soon became intrigued by their world. By the early 1970s McDowell, after being offered a design job by a friend, settled in Rome, where he started to date fashion journalist, Anna Piaggi, and secured a job working for the couturier Pino Lancetti, who taught him everything he needed to know about the art of "Haute couture". McDowell then moved on to work for the National Chamber of Italian Fashion (Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana), then Laura Biagiotti at The House of Biagiotti, where he was responsible for brokering an exclusive deal for Biagiotti to design the uniforms for Alitalia staff.