Fashion designer Dame Mary Quant, the designer known for her pioneering of the Swinging Sixties style, has died aged 93.
A statement issued by her family on Thursday (13 April) said Quant “died peacefully at home in Surrey, UK this morning”.
It continued: “Dame Mary, aged 93, was one of the most internationally recognised fashion designers of the 20th century and an outstanding innovator of the Swinging Sixties.”
Among her many achievements, Quant was known for pioneering the high hemlines that were made popular during a decade of cultural and social revolution in the UK.
The official Twitter account of the Victoria & Albert Museum, which recently hosted an exhibition about Dame Mary Quant‘s designs, shared a tribute that said it was “hard to overstate” the impact Quant had on the fashion world.
“She represented the joyful freedom of 1960s fashion, and provided a new role model for young women,” the statement said. “Fashion today owes so much to her trailblazing vision.”
Quant was born in Blackheath, south London, and was the daughter of two Welsh school teachers. She studied illustration at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she met her husband, Alexander Plunket Greene.
After graduating, she secured an apprenticeship as a milliner. When her husband opened a boutique on the ground floor of a building he had bought, named Bazaar, Quant focused on designing clothes that were then sold in the shop.
She was a self-taught designer and attended evening classes on pattern cutting to achieve the innovative looks that she envisioned.
Fashion designer Dame Mary Quant (Fiona Hanson/PA)
(PA Archive)
Quant strived to create “relaxed clothes suited to the actions of normal life”. Pioneering wearable yet flattering silhouettes and hemlines, Quant’s clothes became widely popular.
She went on to design both women’s and menswear, playing with proportions of the body and taking influences from earlier eras.
The designer is often credited for inventing the decade’s most iconic look and timeless classic: the mini-skirt. Short skirts and shift dresses then became Quant’s trademark, with high-profile models, like Twiggy, seen wearing her designs.
By the end of the Sixties, she had three shops and was the UK’s most high-profile designer.