Remembering Dame Mary Quant (1930-2023)

Shown at a retrospective exhibition of Dame Mary Quant's lifetime achievements held at London's Victoria & Albert Museum that ran from 6 April 2019 to 16 February 2020, was a photo featuring Dame Mary Quant having her iconic Geometric Haircut created by Vidal Sassoon in his London salon on Bond Street.  Quant championed the look, as iteration of the Sassoon blunt-cut bob style was sported by the likes of Princes Margaret (sister of Queen Elizabeth II), actress Mia Farrow and Vogue creative director Grace Coddington.  

It was news that shook Britain's fashion world when Mary Quant's family announced the iconic designer's passing on 14 April 2023.  She was 93.

Quant's family announced to the PA news agency that the designer died peacefully at home in Surrey, UK.

Dame Mary Quant is remembered as Britain's best-known designer who changed the fashion system and established London as a new centre of style to face off the dominance of Paris couture.

While she was defined as the designer who made the miniskirt a wardrobe staple and established the playful look for women in the 1960s, her span of achievements was so much more.

Exactly four years ago, London's Victoria & Albert Museum in South Kensington launched a major exhibition to celebrate the late designer's amazing career between 1955 and 1975 featuring more than 200 garments, including unseen pieces from Quant's personal archive.  

In addition to miniskirts, her vast span of designs included hot pants, iconic dresses and coats, vibrant tights, makeup, sunglasses, berets as well as miniature versions of her designs on diminutive Daisy dolls and of course her famous daisy logo. 

Left and right photos show
Daisy dolls dressed in
scaled-down versions of 
Mary Quant's designs.

Quant first came on the scene with her experimental boutique Bazaar of 1955 and by the 1960s and 70s, Mary Quant became an international brand as thousands of her products were mass-produced and exported around the world.

Sporting her instantly recognisable geometric haircut (fashioned by Vidal Sassoon himself in London), Quant was an ambassador of her revolutionary look.  

Mary Quant's OBE dress

When Quant went to Buckingham Palace to collect her OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) award, she sported a mini jersey dress made of jersey commonly used on sports clothing. It featured functional details like her favourite circular zip-pulls and contrasting top stitching.  The OBE dress became her signature look.

The long dress possibly from the 39 Ginger Group designs show
at the Hôtel de Crillon, Paris on 19 April 1963. 

"The whole point of fashion is to make fashionable clothes available to everyone."    Mary Quant 1966

Following the announcement of her death, Victoria and Albert Museum wrote on Twitter:  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."

All photos by Lucia Carpio, taken at an exhibition to celebrate Dame Mary Quant's lifetime achievements at London's Victoria & Albert Museum.  The exhibition ran from 6 April 2019 to 16 February 2020.