Designer Mary Quant, 93, died this Thursday, April 13, at her home in Surrey, on the outskirts of London. Quant has gone down in history as the inspiration for the miniskirt in the golden decade of the 60s of the last century. A true pop icon, which she dressed Brigitte Bardot among other stars (top left photo).
Quant is so much more than the designer of the miniskirt. The dressmaker created the Chelsea style, the Chelsea look, which transformed the image of the United Kingdom in the world. It was the lever of change, as much as the Beatles, in those years of the Fab Four with uniforms, jacket suits and bangs. London created a world trend, it was a brand image. Quant specialized in young people, in the casual, rebellious, innovative and transgressive style. In those sixties looks of turtleneck tops with bell-bottoms that had nothing to do with the haute couture that France exported. It was the revolution in fashion, design and cinema.
Quant was born in 1934 in London and trained at the Goldsmith School of Art in the capital. She met her later husband, Alexander Plunket Greene. Together they opened their first fashion store in 1955, which they called Bazaar. Chelsea became a hotbed of musicians. From the Beatles themselves to the Stones passed through there.
Passionate about design, she began to create her own pieces. Among them, the short skirt, a creation that she also attributes to Courrèges. then came the style swinging London o swinging Sixtiesa social, cultural and musical movement led by the young generations of the sixties in the British capital.
His international projection came from Paris to Japan, passing through New York. Decorated by Queen Elizabeth II with the Order of the British Empire, the designer designed the wardrobe for two on the road (1967). She dressed Audrey Hepburn in this Stanley Donen film set to music by Henry Mancini.