Quant, Mary

Quant

Mary Quant (1934 – 2023): English designer

Part of the Swinging London scene, she shared with Courrèges the invention of the miniskirt. Born in London, she studied at the Goldsmith College of Art, where she met her future husband Alexander Plunker Greene (1933-1990). Soon after graduating in 1955 she opened her first shop, Bazaar, on the Kings Road with Greene and Archie McNair.

Soon after, she started designing and making her own clothes, and found instant fame with her young and timely fashion which captured the spirit of 1960s London. She gave teenagers already rebelling against the wardrobes and habits of their mothers the possibility to dress in a daring and revolutionary way with respect to the bourgeois formality of the previous generation: thigh-skimming skirts, skinny ribs, splashes of color, patterned tights. She also used new materials: PVC for a line of rainwear.

Quant, Mary
Mary Quant: the miniskirt becomes expression of elegance and womanliness.

In 1961 her success meant the opening of a second shop in London, and two years later she embarked on the US market with Ginger Group. In 1966 she founded her cosmetics company (with its daisy logo) and was awarded an OBE. She designed collections for the American chain J.C. Penney and for the Puritan Group, and under her own brand she produced shoes, bed linen, carpets, wallpaper, and hosiery.

From 1968 she rode on a new wave of success, but this died out in the 1970s, and her star as a designer faded. However the Group carrying her name continues to do good business, even away from the spotlight.

Mary Quant died at 93, on 13th April 2023, in her Surrey house.

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