Mary Quant
Mary Quant
Dame Barbara Mary Quant, Mrs Plunket Greene, DBE, FCSD, RDIis a Welsh fashion designer and British fashion icon...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionFashion Designer
Date of Birth11 February 1934
bowler carrying opened tightly wearing
When I opened my first shop, city gents were still carrying tightly furled umbrellas and wearing bowler hats. It was into this world that I launched my new ideas about fashion.
change reaching
Fashion is a very ongoing, renewing thing, about change and reaching for the next thing. You are permanently dissatisfied, and it's always got to get better.
compete fashion knowing life looks outside people react tool
Fashion is a tool . . . to compete in life outside the home. People like you better, without knowing why, because people always react well to a person they like the looks of.
good people
People call things 'vulgar' when they are new to them. When they have become old, they become 'good taste.'
school
I used to start re-arranging my school uniform, hitching up my skirt to be more exciting-looking.
high sixties spirits
Most of my memories of the Sixties are ones of optimism, high spirits and confidence.
divide life mud open social space swinging time village work
I divide my time between all the mud and open space in Surrey and the social life and work in London, particularly Chelsea, which still has the same village feel that it had in the swinging Sixties.
complete design
One thing I longed to do was to design a complete look, from head to toe, so I started a make-up line in 1966.
learnt
Many of my friends are chefs, and I learnt to cook watching them.
favourite mainly market
My favourite Nice restaurant is in the market. It's open mainly for the market people, and shuts in August.
christmas england full garden heat lunch morning september warm
My garden in England is full of eating-out places, for heat waves, warm September evenings, or lunch on a frosty Christmas morning.
america anyone everybody saw until
Of course, I remember when everybody was thin. It wasn't until I went to America in the Sixties that I saw anyone who wasn't skinny thin.
creators
The real creators of miniskirt are the girls, the same that you seen in the streets.
along figure formative pill truly
As well as being a creative genius, Vidal Sassoon was a formative figure of the Sixties. Along with the Pill and the mini-skirt, his influence was truly liberating.