Fashion designer Dame Mary Quant - who helped shape Sixties style and is famed for helping popularise the miniskirt - has died aged 93.
The “trailblazing” designer died peacefully at her home in Surrey on Thursday morning, a statement from her family said.
As one of the most influential figures in the fashion scene of the 1960s, Dame Mary was credited with having “invented” the miniskirt from her shop on Chelsea’s King’s Road, and made fashion accessible to the masses with her sleek, streamlined and vibrant designs.
A statement from Dame Mary’s family on Thursday described her as "one of the most internationally recognised Fashion Designers of the 20th Century and an outstanding innovator of the Swinging Sixties."
Born in south-east London on February 11, 1930, Dame Mary was the daughter of two Welsh school teachers.
In the 1950s, she gained a diploma in Art Education at Goldsmith’s College, where she met her husband Alexander Plunket Greene, who later helped establish her brand. He died in 1990.
Dame Mary was taken on as an apprentice to a milliner before making her own clothes and in 1955 opened Bazaar, a boutique on the King’s Road in Chelsea.
Following its success, she opened up another location in London Street, Knightsbridge, and by 1961 she was exporting to the US.
She began experimenting with shorter hemlines in the late 1950s, culminating in the creation of one of the defining fashions of the following decade.
In 2014, Dame Mary, who named the skirt after her favourite make of car, recalled its “feeling of freedom and liberation”.
She said: “It was the girls on King’s Road who invented the mini. I was making clothes which would let you run and dance and we would make them the length the customer wanted.
“I wore them very short and the customers would say, ‘shorter, shorter’.”
She was one of the most influential figures in the fashion scene of the 1960s and is credited with making fashion accessible to the masses with her sleek, streamlined and vibrant designs.
Dame Mary also revolutionised the high street with hot pants, and trousers for women, as well as accessories, tights and make-up, while using the daisy brand design that became synonymous with her creations.
Her clothes were popularised by figures including Jean Shrimpton, Pattie Boyd, Cilla Black and Twiggy, and some have compared her impact on the fashion world to the Beatles’ impact on pop music.
A 2020 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum about Dame Mary’s fashion proved a hit with the public. It was visited 400,000 times and was said at the time to be the third most visited fashion exhibition in the museum’s history.
It revealed how Dame Mary “democratised fashion and empowered women” with her minimal and androgynous graphic look, which rejected the “debutante” styles of previous generations.
At the time of the exhibition, Dame Mary said: “We didn’t necessarily realise that what we were creating was pioneering, we were simply too busy relishing all the opportunities and embracing the results before rushing on to the next challenge!”
In 2021, actress and film producer Sadie Frost created a fashion documentary about Dame Mary called Quant.
Prominent figures in the world of fashion, such as supermodel Kate Moss, designer Dame Vivienne Westwood, beauty entrepreneur and make-up artist Charlotte Tilbury, and designers Jasper Conran and Dame Zandra Rhodes contributed to the film.
Frost said Dame Mary “changed the whole kind of female silhouette” and stopped women dressing like their mothers by creating “free and daring” designs.
The V&A Museum shared a tribute to Dame Mary on Thursday, writing: “It’s impossible to overstate Quant’s contribution to fashion.
“She represented the joyful freedom of 1960s fashion, and provided a new role model for young women.
“Fashion today owes so much to her trailblazing vision.”
Alexandra Shulman, former editor-in-chief of British Vogue, paid tribute to her on Twitter, writing: “RIP Dame Mary Quant. A leader of fashion but also in female entrepreneurship- a visionary who was much more than a great haircut.”
Model and photographer Pattie Boyd remembered her as a “true icon”, writing on Facebook: “Very sad news today to learn of the passing of the 60s daringly creative, fun genius, much-loved lady, Dame Mary Quant.”
Dame Mary, who was also a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers and winner of the Minerva Medal, the society’s highest award, was made an OBE in 1966 for services to the fashion industry.
In 2014, she was made a dame for services to British fashion in the Queen’s New Year list.
She said at the time: “I am absolutely delighted to have been awarded this terrific honour. It is extremely gratifying that my work in the fashion industry has been recognised and acknowledged in such a significant way.”
Dame Mary is survived by her son Orlando, three grandchildren, and her brother Tony Quant.
