Mary Quant, British Fashion Icon, Passes Away At 93

By James Mercado On Apr 17, 2023

Mary Quant, a British fashion designer credited with popularizing the miniskirt, passed away at 93, according to a statement released by her family to the PA news agency.

According to the statement, Quant passed away quietly on Thursday morning at her home in Surrey, south of London.

Her family called her “one of the most internationally recognised fashion designers of the 20th Century and an outstanding innovator.”

One of the first worldwide super brands was introduced by Quant, ushering in a new age in fashion. After the Mini Cooper, the miniskirt became a defining fashion item of the Swinging Sixties.

Quant’s creations symbolized independence, empowerment, and a rejection of their parents’ aesthetic standards for the women who grew up wearing them.

She made it clear in Sadie Frost’s 2021 documentary “Quant” about her life that her clothes were not intended for a select group of “stately ladies,” but instead provided a vibrant diversion from the formal dress codes of the previous decade, such as the refined design of Christian Dior’s debut collection, “the New Look.”

There is considerable controversy around the claim that Quant invented the miniskirt; the video also suggests that French designer André Courrèges may have been responsible. But she made the progressively shorter skirt the defining item of the 1960s, shattering societal conventions.

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Quant’s fashion empire went beyond the miniskirt, too, as she popularized other ground-breaking trends like her very own Vidal Sassoon haircut, the “Chelsea girl” coquettish aesthetic, Peter Pan collars, vibrant tights made to go with her vivid collections, her use of PVC for outerwear (previously reserved for fishermen), male knits transformed into female sweater dresses, and dress pockets.

On Thursday, former British Vogue editor-in-chief Alexandra Shulman paid tribute to Quant by tweeting: “RIP Dame Mary Quant. A leader of fashion but also in female entrepreneurship- a visionary who was much more than a great haircut.”

From 1976 to 1978, Quant was on the advisory council for the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, where she had a show of her work in 2019.

The museum said in a statement Thursday: “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.”