The fashion designer and icon Mary Quant has died at the age of 93. Brigid Keenan wrote the following piece in 2019.
It is almost impossible to explain to today’s readers why Mary Quant (and the other Young Designers, as they became known) had such a huge impact. Over the half-century since, there have been so many ‘new’ ideas in fashion that her and their initial shock value has been diluted. Luckily, though, the Christian Dior exhibition is also showing at the V&A, and a quick visit there — look particularly at the fashions of the 1950s — will give you a clue.
Pre-Quant, clothes were constricted: fussy, fitted, buttoned, cuffed, boned. They demanded a lot of the wearer. Mary’s were unstructured and she took her inspiration from surprising places.
Her grey flannel suit that I fell in love with — which my friend who worked in the Quant sewing room replicated for half the price — had a casual jacket, cut like a man’s blazer and a box-pleated skirt.
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