The revolutionary British fashion designer Mary Quant has died at the age of 93 at her home in the county of Surrey, in the south of England. The influential dressmaker invented the miniskirt in the 1960s, a title that she disputed with the master André Courrèges. The garment scandalized the most puritanical society and conquered the modern woman, who turned it into a flag of her liberation.
“The miniskirt did not arise in a conscientious way: it was an explosion, a necessity, youth was crying out for it,” Mary Quant declared at the time. The designer inserted the scissors and shortened the skirt by 15 centimeters. She was an indispensable figure in the ‘Swinging London’ cultural movement, which she fostered from her London store, Bazaar, where she went from selling other designers’ clothes to creating her own colorful pieces. With them she faced bourgeois conventions and allowed young people not to dress in the image and likeness of her parents.
Lingerie, patterned stockings, over-the-knee boots, hip belts, flared pants, ‘shorts’ (shorts) and, curiously, also the maxi skirt, gained popularity thanks to the daring Quant.
Such was the success of the dressmaker’s shop that it became a meeting point for celebrities such as Brigitte Bardot, Audrey Hepburn, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
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