Mary Quant

At 90 years old, Mary Quant physical status not available right now. We will update Mary Quant's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Barbara Mary Quant, DBE, FCSD, RDI, born 11 February 1934) is an English fashion designer and fashion icon who is of Welsh origins.

She was one of the designers who praised the miniskirt and hotpants, and she encouraged young people to dress themselves and not treat fashion as a game.

Ernestine Carter, a respected and influential fashion journalist of the 1950s and 1960s, wrote: "It is given to a select few people who are born at the right time, in the right location, with the right qualifications."

Chanel, Dior, and Mary Quant are three designers in recent fashion: Chanel, Dior, and Mary Quant.

Early life

Quant was born in Blackheath, London, on February 11, the daughter of Welsh teachers. Jack and Mildred Quant's parents both came from mining families; however, they had been granted scholarships to grammar school and had both obtained first-class degrees at Cardiff University before heading to London to work as school teachers.

She went to Blackheath High School. She had intended to study fashion, but her parents had dissuaded her from this path of study, so she instead concentrated on illustration and art education at Goldsmiths College, where she earned a degree in 1953. She apprenticed with Erik, a high-end Mayfair milliner, on Brook Street next door to Claridge's hotel in search of her fashion passions.

Personal life

Alexander Plunket Greene, grandson of Harry Plunket Greene, met her future husband and business partner in 1953. They were married from 1957 to 1990, and they had a son, Orlando (b. ). 1969 (?)

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Fashion career

In her first boutique, Quant initially sold clothing sourced from wholesalers. Harper's Bazaar's coverage of her collection has gotten more attention, while an American manufacturer has purchased some of her dress designs. She decided to take designs into her own hands due to the increasing fascination and her personal passion for these bolder looks. She was soon employing a handful of sewing machine operators, beginning as an apprentice; by 1966, she was working with a total of 18 factories. Quant's designs were more experimental and unique than traditional styles of the time, and were inspired by the culture-forward 'Chelsea Set' of artists and socialites. Quant's designs transformed fashion from the utilitarian wartime model of the late 1940s to the dynamism of the 1950s and 60s' cultural shifts. She sold her own originals in a variety of hues and patterns, such as colorful tights.

Quant's success did not only result from her unique styles; she created a unique environment in her Bazaar shop, which included music, spirits, and long hours that attracted young adults. This environment was unusual for the industry, as it distinguished from the stale department stores and inaccessible high-end designer store environments that had a hold on the fashion market. Models in eccentric poses at her boutique attracted a lot of attention, and people would often stop to stare at the eccentric displays. "We barely had a piece of the original merchandise left in ten days," she says.

Quant was one of the few London-based high-end designers to regularly produce youthful clothing for young people in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Kiki Byrne, the other, opened her shop on King's Road in direct competition with Quant.

The miniskirt, which has been dubbed one of the 1960s' most popular styles, is one of Quant's most popular pieces. Although she is often credited as the style's creator, other people have disputed this assertion. Marit Allen, a modern fashion journalist and editor of UK Vogue's influential "Young Ideas" pages, has confirmed that John Bates, not Quant or André Courrèges, was the original designer of the mini skirt, rather than Quant or André Courrèges. Courrèges is credited by some with the style's inception. However, skirts had been shortening since the 1950s—a feat that Quantitative and liberating, allowing women to drive for a bus.

"It was the girls on the King's Road" who invented the miniskirt," Quant later said. I was making simple, youthful, simple clothes, in which you could move, in which you could run and jump, and we'd make them the length the customer needed. "I wore them very short," the customer would say, "shorter, shorter." "They are curiously feminine, but their femininity lies in their attitude rather than in their appearance," she says of the miniskirt, after her favorite make of car, the Mini, and said of its wearers: "They are curiously feminine, but their femininity lies in their attitude rather than in their appearance... She loves being noticed, but wittily. She is lively—positive—opinionated." Twiggy, the fashion model, would sell the miniskirt in other countries.

Quant is often credited with inventing the coloured and patterned tights that accompanied the garment, although their contribution to the Spanish couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga, who sold harlequin-patterned tights in 1962 or to John Bates is often attributed to the miniskirt.

Later career

Quant produced short shorts in the late 1960s that were the forerunner of hotpants and became a British fashion icon. In 1967, she created berets in twelve colors for British headwear firm Kangol. Quant's berets, which feature her daisy emblem, are on display in Quant's Victoria and Albert Museum exhibit. Rather than focusing on her clothing lines, including the duvet, which she claims to have invented, she concentrated on household products and make-up during the 1970s and 1980s.

Quant built the interior of the Mini (1000) Designer in 1988 (originally named the Mini Quant) Designer (instead of recognizing Quant's name on the car). It had black-and-white stripe seats with red trim. Quant's signature was visible on the upper left quadrant, and the seatbelts were red, and passenger and coach seats were assigned to Quant. Quant's signature daisy was on the bonnet badge, and "Mary Quant" was inscribed over the signature name. Unlike the more common chrome or black finishes, the headlight housings, wheel arches, door knobs, and bumpers were all "nimbus grey." Two thousand people were released in the United Kingdom on June 15, 1988, and a few were also sent to international markets; however, the numbers for these are difficult to come by. The special edition Mini came in two body colors, jet black and diamond white.

After a Japanese buy-out, she resigned as the head of Mary Quant Ltd, her cosmetics firm. In Japan, there are more than 200 Mary Quant Colour shops.

In 1963, Quant was the first recipient of the Dress of the Year award. In 1966, she was named Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her contributions to the fashion industry. She arrived in Buckingham Palace to accept the award in a cream wool jersey minidress with blue facings. She received the British Fashion Council's Hall of Fame Award in 1990. In the 2015 New Year Honours for services to British fashion, she was named a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.

In 2006, Quant received an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University. The Royal Mail selected Quant's miniskirt for their "British Design Classics" commemorative postage stamp issue in 2009. In 2012, she was one of artist Sir Peter Blake's selected British cultural icons to appear in a new version of his most popular work – the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover reveals how to honor British cultural figures from his time.

Quant is a member of the Chartered Society of Designers and the winner of the Minerva Medal, the society's highest award.

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