Miniskirt And Swinging Sixties Icon Mary Quant Dies Aged 93

Just a few months after the U.K. fashion scene lost famous punk icon Vivienne Westwood, the industry is mourning the passing of another luminary, Mary Quant, the British designer who made the miniskirt a statement about far more than fashion.

Announcing her death today, her family said Quant, who was 93, had “died peacefully at home in Surrey, U.K. this morning”.

They called her “one of the most internationally recognised fashion designers of the 20th century and an outstanding innovator of the Swinging Sixties”.

And indeed she was. Arguably a trailblazer for many of the trends and techniques seen in the fashion sector, her legacy continues today.

During London’s Swinging Sixties Quant became as synonymous with the city’s reputation as a youthful fashion capital as Twiggy, Marianne Faithfull, Carnaby Street and Chelsea’s Kings Road.

While there is contention about whether she was the original creator of the miniskirt, it was undoubtedly Mary Quant who made the fashion item a totem for a new generation of young women.

That was because Quant’s signature was about more than a simple, and scant, item of clothing. The full design package included a striking Vidal Sassoon haircut and simple, modern fashions, and she was frequently photographed, almost always wearing one of her miniskirts.

That early awareness of image and the media reinforced her reputation as one of the main protagonists of the Sixties’ shift in fashion that put youth upfront and center.

Quant: Bright And Simple

Quant’s apparel was typically bright, colorful and simple, taking inspiration from a wide range of sub-cultures from the music-influenced, smart casual mods to Britain’s traditional school uniforms.

While Quant’s fashions were not inexpensive, they were more affordable and accessible than those made by the French design houses who had previously embodied a sense of style for younger generations.

Her designs connected with a new generation of aspirational and forward-looking modern young women with careers and more money in their pockets or, as Quant described it, “the young were essentially tired of wearing the same as their mothers”.

She began in fashion in 1955 when she opened the Bazaar store on London’s uber hip Kings Road (coincidentally where Westwood established her famous Sex clothing store, which became synonymous with the punk scene, two decades later) with husband Alexander Plunket Greene, to whom she was married until his 1990 death.

The store soon became a symbol of women’s changing attitudes and this and Quant’s subsequent innovations paved the ways for many fashion trends to come.

She initially designed clothes based on simple patterns but turned the conventions of traditional retail on their head by using one day’s takings to finance the next day’s designs, constantly replenishing stock. It was arguably the first fast fashion.

Among her designs, Quant also championed bright and unusual pantyhose, and designed her own black and white daisy logo, which went on to appear on packaging for a growing range of spinoffs including a more affordable fashion range and cosmetics, as she became one of the first mainstream designers to leverage her brand.

As tributes began to flood in on Twitter, the Victoria & Albert Museum, which had recently showcased Quant’s work, said: “It’s impossible to overstate Quant’s contribution to fashion. She represented the joyful freedom of 1960s fashion, and provided a new role model for young women. Fashion today owes so much to her trailblazing vision.”

True to her pioneering spirt, she wore a miniskirt to receive her OBE in 1966.