If, when in London, bookmark this. London’s Victoria & Albert Museum has announced its next blockbuster fashion exhibition: Mary Quant, the first retrospective of the revolutionary designer in nearly 50 years. You may have heard of Quant, who’s often mentioned in the same breath as the Swinging Sixties, but contemporary fashion owes her so much more.
After studying illustration at Goldsmiths and becoming a milliner’s apprentice, Quant began designing and making clothes for her boutique, Bazaar, in 1955, which was located above her partner Alexander Plunket Greene’s restaurant. Beginning with vinyl Peter Pan collars, oversized men’s cardigans designed to be worn as dresses, and brightly hued knitwear, the one-woman show soon grew into a team of machinists as Quant opened more branches across the city.
Quant was a cornerstone of the ’60s ‘youthquake’ movement. Previously, teenagers dressed like their parents in gray, formal attire, but a new wave of designers and musicians encouraged them to express their individuality and creativity in unprecedented ways. Worn by models like Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton, and Penelope Tree, Quant’s playful and subversive designs reached a generation ready to shun tradition and embrace its own subcultures and identities. When a new piece dropped at Bazaar, women would travel across the city to cop their latest fix; her boutique had the cult status of Supreme.
Fun fact: The miniskirt has become synonymous with Quant and, whether or not she designed the first one — many argue it was French designer — it’s accepted that she popularized the era-defining piece. But Quant did more than just liberate women from twinsets and pearls. Inspired by the sharp tailoring of the Mods, plus the dancers and beatniks of Chelsea, she was among the first to dress women in trousers — a world away from the demure, calf-length pencil skirts of their mothers.
Mary Quant runs at the Victoria & Albert Museum from April 6, 2023 to March 8, 2020. Tickets will go on sale
in fall 2018. https://www.vam.ac.uk/