“The whole point of fashion is to make fashionable clothes available to everyone” Mary Quant.
Mary Quant and her husband and business partner, Alexander Plunket Greene launched a fashion revolution. They were at the forefront of the youth movement in fashion, young people designing for young people. They opened their groundbreaking Bazaar on Kings Road in London in 1955.
Mary Quant wanted her clothes and accessories to be eye catching, strong and colourful, to offer freedom for the young and be totally unlike the clothes their mothers wore.
Her signature style became synonymous with the Swinging Sixties, which is when I picked up on it. While I didn’t have an original Mary Quant, there were many copies available here in Australia. I remember thinking I was Christmas in a Prue Acton white empire line crimplene dress with a nylon scarf threaded through loops around the neckline. Crimplene was the most hideous fabric, much like wearing a plastic bag, but we thought it was marvellous as teenagers.
She also produced dress patterns for Butterick and I made my own…a lot.
While in London recently I was delighted with the Mary Quant exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
The first dress in the collection is the dress she wore to collect one of her many awards in 1966.
The exhibition is a timeline of Mary Quant’s fashions. She introduced new fabrics, or new interpretations of old ones and showed them on the iconic models of the time, Jean Shrimpton, Twiggy and more.
Her fashion parades featured young models dancing to new music, a completely new concept.
She used PVC for clothing for the first time. It took her almost 2 years to work out how the sew the fabric effectively.
The clothes became more colourful as the 60s went on.
There were dolls and cutout figures to dress.
She made underwear. I can recall wearing steppins…Yuk! As if a 14 year old needed these awful things. I also remember wearing pantyhose for the first time, so much better than stockings and suspenders. I did have Mary Quant pantyhose. The packaging was great.
She did makeup and had cartoon like illustrations showing how to use it.
Her accessories were fabulous, and much copied.
I’m pretty sure I had this Butterick pattern.
It was fun to take a walk back through my teenage years, but the exhibition is excellent for anyone with an interest in fashion. There are hundreds of garments and accessories including unseen pieces from the designer’s personal archive.
The exhibition continues until 16th February 2020