Mary Quant: The “mother of the miniskirt” in the V&A Museum

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Mary Quant influenced the fashion of the 1960s.and is considered the inventor of the Mini-Rocks. With a major exhibition by the V&A, London Museum pays tribute to the life work of the British fashion designer.

  • The mother of the miniskirt to the 85.

    It all started with my grandmother’s skirts

    Mary Quant mixed in the ‘ 60s, the fashion world. She was shocked, first of all, the knee-length skirts of her grandmother. Then you sold tailored skirts in her Boutique “Bazaar” in London’s Chelsea district. They all ended up at least ten centimeters above the knee, to date, unheard of.

  • The mother of the miniskirt to the 85.

    Finally can race to catch the Bus

    “A short skirt, in which you can move freely, run and the Bus was able to catch. But, especially in the dance” – the quantum idea was. In her Boutique she offered affordable, but unusual fashion for young people, and embossed with your mini skirt is the Image of the young, modern woman.

  • The mother of the miniskirt to the 85.

    The “Swinging Sixties”

    The mini skirt became a Symbol for the time of the “Swinging Sixties” in London. Twiggy, the young Model with the skinny legs, the androgynous figure and the Bubi-head, wore the short skirts on the catwalks of the world. The Beatles dressed their Girlfriends in Quants Boutique in London’s King’s Road. The street was regarded as the centre of “Swinging London”.

  • The mother of the miniskirt to the 85.

    The girls of the King’s Road

    Mary Quant never wanted the sole glory for the emergence of the mini skirt once. “The girls of the King’s Road have invented the mini skirt. I had made the skirts short, but the customers wanted it shorter.” The Name dates back to Quants preference for the eponymous car.

  • The mother of the miniskirt to the 85.

    By the Pope, damn it, from the Queen appreciated

    As the first young women wore the short skirts in Public, they were shown a yellow card by police officers. The officials had to make sure such a skirt was the length allowed at all. The Vatican condemned the mini skirt as lewd, but Queen Elizabeth, here in your visit to Germany in 1965, awarded to Mary Quant in 1966 a medal for their achievements in the fashion industry.

  • The mother of the miniskirt to the 85.

    World More Hype

    Other designers and the media picked up the bold idea. In 1962, the fashion magazine “Vogue” Quants Designs showed; after Germany, the mini skirt came in the year 1964. Until 1965, the fashion trend had spread worldwide. But only at the end of the 1960s, there was the short skirts in the collections of renowned French fashion houses such as Yves Saint Laurent or Christian Dior.

  • The mother of the miniskirt to the 85.

    Cosmetics and accessories

    In the case of mini-skirts, it was not. In 1969, hired Mary Quant to their fashion line focused on accessories, cosmetics and lingerie line, which she led under her name. The company still exists today, but the Quant moved back in the year 2000. Over the life of the mini skirt, she said: “It made people kind of happy. It was a breakthrough. It was the feeling of the time.”

    Author: Courtney Tenz


  • The mother of the miniskirt to the 85.

    It all started with my grandmother’s skirts

    Mary Quant mixed in the ‘ 60s, the fashion world. She was shocked, first of all, the knee-length skirts of her grandmother. Then you sold tailored skirts in her Boutique “Bazaar” in London’s Chelsea district. They all ended up at least ten centimeters above the knee, to date, unheard of.

  • The mother of the miniskirt to the 85.

    Finally can race to catch the Bus

    “A short skirt, in which you can move freely, run and the Bus was able to catch. But, especially in the dance” – the quantum idea was. In her Boutique she offered affordable, but unusual fashion for young people, and embossed with your mini skirt is the Image of the young, modern woman.

  • The mother of the miniskirt to the 85.

    The “Swinging Sixties”

    The mini skirt became a Symbol for the time of the “Swinging Sixties” in London. Twiggy, the young Model with the skinny legs, the androgynous figure and the Bubi-head, wore the short skirts on the catwalks of the world. The Beatles dressed their Girlfriends in Quants Boutique in London’s King’s Road. The street was regarded as the centre of “Swinging London”.

  • The mother of the miniskirt to the 85.

    The girls of the King’s Road

    Mary Quant never wanted the sole glory for the emergence of the mini skirt once. “The girls of the King’s Road have invented the mini skirt. I had made the skirts short, but the customers wanted it shorter.” The Name dates back to Quants preference for the eponymous car.

  • The mother of the miniskirt to the 85.

    By the Pope, damn it, from the Queen appreciated

    As the first young women wore the short skirts in Public, they were shown a yellow card by police officers. The officials had to make sure such a skirt was the length allowed at all. The Vatican condemned the mini skirt as lewd, but Queen Elizabeth, here in your visit to Germany in 1965, awarded to Mary Quant in 1966 a medal for their achievements in the fashion industry.

  • The mother of the miniskirt to the 85.

    World More Hype

    Other designers and the media picked up the bold idea. In 1962, the fashion magazine “Vogue” Quants Designs showed; after Germany, the mini skirt came in the year 1964. Until 1965, the fashion trend had spread worldwide. But only at the end of the 1960s, there was the short skirts in the collections of renowned French fashion houses such as Yves Saint Laurent or Christian Dior.

  • The mother of the miniskirt to the 85.

    Cosmetics and accessories

    In the case of mini-skirts, it was not. In 1969, hired Mary Quant to their fashion line focused on accessories, cosmetics and lingerie line, which she led under her name. The company still exists today, but the Quant moved back in the year 2000. Over the life of the mini skirt, she said: “It made people kind of happy. It was a breakthrough. It was the feeling of the time.”

    Author: Courtney Tenz


“The point of fashion is to make them accessible to everyone”. The Credo of today’s 85-year-old Mary Quant is at the same time, the subtitle of the Show. The exhibition uses numerous objects, the career of the designer and illustrates their influence on the female clothing style of their time.

Prior to the Start of the exhibition makers had called the London the inside of your cabinets to clothing, from Quant to sift through; some shown should then be in the Show. The action was successful: More than 800 items of clothing and accessories were delivered to the Museum. A retrospective of her work, asked, answered, Quant the curators: “It was a wonderfully exciting time, and despite the fast-paced, hard work, we had enormous fun.” You had not at that time been aware of just how groundbreaking your designs would be. “We were just too busy.”

The fashion designer Mary Quant at a young age

The fashion designer grew up in London in the post-war period. Back to a time when “most of the people in their gardens and allotments were, in the hope that life is back to how it was prior to the hostilities,” recalls the 85-Year-old. So it was not surprising that the young designer, the related bright colors, and innovative materials, excited with her first Show a lot of attention. Finally, the city was still full of gentlemen with bowler hat and umbrella. “It was this world into which I brought my ideas about fashion.”

New you were all. After they had opened at the beginning of the 1960s, her Boutique “Bazaar” on King’s Road, made Quant innovative image of femininity quickly a name: Young color should be glad and especially modern occur woman. And in order to hit exactly the nerve of your most peers and customers.

Mary Quant and her husband, the fashion designer, Alexander Plunket Greene

Short Bob hairdo and knee-high boots embossed Quants fashion Aesthetic, the silk stockings against bloomers and stiff Bras against fleet Baby-Dolls being exchanged. The lived brand is currently in a period of cultural Rebellion, England in the 1960s.

Short and even shorter

The Mary Quant Beauty Bus

The trend setter in the case of took advantage of the Zeitgeist of the “Swinging Sixties” and was so – at least stylistically – with the women’s movement: it has created a strong role model for the working woman. Mary Quant created both the mini skirt as well as tailored trousers. They designed a Uniform that helped what helped women redefine – a style that proclaimed loud and self-confident: “I wear what I want, thank you very much!”

“I made a light, youthful, simple clothes in which you could move, you have to run and jump. And we have made in the length, to the customer,” said Quant. Even as a young girl she had hemmed the skirts of her grandmother. But at the Bazaar, there were your clients, the continued the Trend. At the end of your Beinanmen had Quant – mother of the Mini-Rocks. “I wore it very short,” she said, “and the customer said: ‘Shorter, shorter!'”

Mary Quant (in the middle) in the circle of your Models

She had hardly made it as a designer name, used Quant of new textiles and fabrics, and made in large quantities to produce numbers. For one, they revolutionized the street image, on the other, they made their designs very many women. “Snobbery has gone out of fashion”, Quant once quote, “in our shops you will meet the duchesses, the queue with the write forces the same clothes.”

Has your life’s work – the British designer Mary Quant

The inventor of the mini skirt turned to the end of the 1960s, the accessory. You designed now, Clogs and knee-high boots made of PVC, combined with shiny rain jackets. At the end of the decade, she gave up her work clothes and gave her name to a cosmetics line. Up until today, although Quantum itself is long since retired.

To see in the V&A

Quants popularity in England and her influence in the fashion world, continues to be, even more than 60 years after her debut as a designer. The exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, is likely to be an inlet hardly save.