Mary Quant: A New Step in Fashion
"The whole aim of fashion is to make trendy clothes available to everyone." With the sentence, Mary Quant found her place in the exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. At the exhibition, which can be visited until February 2020, you can see more than 200 clothes and accessories, along with pieces from Quant's personal archive. With the inspiration we got from this exhibition, we wanted to briefly touch on Mary Quant and her designer personality.
Mary Quant, the first fashion designer to present a mini skirt to Buckingham Palace, was born in 1934. She studied as a teacher at University of London, Goldsmith College, and her acquaintance with fashion began by adapting paper motifs. Quant's first customers were from the same social circle as she, who sold the clothes she designed in her studio apartment and paid off the next day's fabric costs.
Mary Quant's style was Chelsea style, which was inspired by children's and dance outfits, providing ease of movement. Strapless dresses, gingham pattern, knee-high socks were the main elements that expressed this style. Apart from these, there were also innovations brought by Quant, for example, he played with the size of cardigans and turned football jerseys into clothes. This new style of clothing was described as "dolly birds", translated as fancy women.
The most important innovation associated with Quant is the skirt length. In 1965, Mary Quant shortened the skirt length by 10-15 cm, designing the iconic mini skirt today.
Mary Quant spoke of the miniskirt at that time as follows: " I was making easy, young, simple clothes that you could move, run and jump; and we were making sure that the customer wanted the length ."
Mary Quant was famous not only for her miniskirt but also for her hair designs and cosmetics. In the '60s, young girls cut their hair like her, wore a mini skirt and made up like her famous model Twiggy.
When V&A started collecting this collection at the exhibition, they used social media to ask women about their memories of Mary Quant. More than 1000 people responded to the museum with photographs and clothes, and created the exhibition collection.
The exhibition's curator, Jenny Lister: “ Mary Quant has changed the fashion system and upset the dominance of Paris' luxury fashion. She dressed the emancipated woman, escaped from rules and regulations and dressing like their mother. He freed women not only by taking them out of their mothers' clothes , but also by using sweatpants, sportswear and tights . He allowed his designs to be replicated in dresses and knitwear ”.
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