Mary Quant Obituary
Mary Quant, the Mother of the Miniskirt, Dies at 93
As a designer, clad in her signature playclothes and boots, with huge painted eyes, fake freckles and a distinctive bob, she epitomized the style of London’s Swinging Sixties.
Image
Mary Quant at work in London in 1963. Her boutique in the heart of Chelsea was filled with “a bouillabaisse of clothes and accessories.”
Mary Quant at work in London in 1963. Her boutique in the heart of Chelsea was filled with “a bouillabaisse of clothes and accessories.”Credit...Associated Press
Penelope Green
By Penelope Green
April 13, 2023
Updated 9:05 a.m. ET
7 MIN READ
Mary Quant, the British designer who revolutionized fashion and epitomized the style of the Swinging Sixties, a playful, youthful ethos that sprang from the streets, not a Paris atelier, died on Thursday at her home in Surrey, in southern England. Known as the mother of the miniskirt, she was 93.
Her family announced the death in a statement given to the Press Association of Britain, saying that she had died “peacefully.”
England was emerging from its postwar privations when, in 1955, Ms. Quant and her aristocratic boyfriend, Alexander Plunket Greene, both 21 and just out of art school, opened a boutique called Bazaar on London’s King’s Road, in the heart of Chelsea. Ms. Quant filled it with the outfits that she and her bohemian friends were wearing, “a bouillabaisse of clothes and accessories,” as she wrote in an autobiography, “Quant on Quant” (1966) — short flared skirts and pinafores, knee socks and tights, funky jewelry and berets in all colors.
Young women at the time were turning their backs on the corseted shapes of their mothers, with their nipped waists and ship’s-prow chests — the shape of Dior, which had dominated since 1947. They disdained the uniform of the establishment — the signifiers of class and age telegraphed by the lacquered helmets of hair, the twin sets and heels, and the matchy-matchy accessories — the model for which was typically in her 30s, not a young gamine like Ms. Quant.
Mary Quant Obituary
Mary Quant, the Mother of the Miniskirt, Dies at 93
As a designer, clad in her signature playclothes and boots, with huge painted eyes, fake freckles and a distinctive bob, she epitomized the style of London’s Swinging Sixties.
Image
Mary Quant at work in London in 1963. Her boutique in the heart of Chelsea was filled with “a bouillabaisse of clothes and accessories.”
Mary Quant at work in London in 1963. Her boutique in the heart of Chelsea was filled with “a bouillabaisse of clothes and accessories.”Credit...Associated Press
Penelope Green
By Penelope Green
April 13, 2023
Updated 9:05 a.m. ET
7 MIN READ
Mary Quant, the British designer who revolutionized fashion and epitomized the style of the Swinging Sixties, a playful, youthful ethos that sprang from the streets, not a Paris atelier, died on Thursday at her home in Surrey, in southern England. Known as the mother of the miniskirt, she was 93.
Her family announced the death in a statement given to the Press Association of Britain, saying that she had died “peacefully.”
England was emerging from its postwar privations when, in 1955, Ms. Quant and her aristocratic boyfriend, Alexander Plunket Greene, both 21 and just out of art school, opened a boutique called Bazaar on London’s King’s Road, in the heart of Chelsea. Ms. Quant filled it with the outfits that she and her bohemian friends were wearing, “a bouillabaisse of clothes and accessories,” as she wrote in an autobiography, “Quant on Quant” (1966) — short flared skirts and pinafores, knee socks and tights, funky jewelry and berets in all colors.
Young women at the time were turning their backs on the corseted shapes of their mothers, with their nipped waists and ship’s-prow chests — the shape of Dior, which had dominated since 1947. They disdained the uniform of the establishment — the signifiers of class and age telegraphed by the lacquered helmets of hair, the twin sets and heels, and the matchy-matchy accessories — the model for which was typically in her 30s, not a young gamine like Ms. Quant.