Mary Quant review: The woman who kicked off the first youthquake

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Karen Dacre3 April 2019

Inclusivity is the buzzword in fashion right now. Digital platforms, high-street collaborations and immersive experiences are among the methods that are being employed to strike up a conversation with the increasingly valuable everyday consumer.

The V&A’s latest exhibition, a deep dive into the work of Sixties style siren Mary Quant, is a reminder that this approach is anything but new.

At least, the retrospective stands as confirmation that Quant’s legacy is so much more than the swinging mini-skirts for which she is regularly, and perhaps reductively, defined.

Quant, who embarked on an art diploma at Goldsmiths before learning how to make clothes at evening college, was the original brand strategist, with a make-up line, countless collaborations and a determination to resonate with women from all walks of life.

The show, like the thrust of her story, begins in the Fifties with King’s Road restaurant-cum-boutique Bazaar (another concept before its time). Key pieces from the era, created at pace by Quant who worked through the night from her nearby bedsit to replenish the stock for the following day’s trade, are displayed alongside compelling photography and anecdotes from the women who wore them.

V&A curator Jenny Lister had the run of Quant’s archives and the V&A costume stores, which hold the largest collection of her designs in the world, when researching this exhibition, but it’s the pieces that were crowd-sourced from a national appeal (#WeWantQuant) that are the stars of the show.

Certainly, their inclusion demonstrates that while many of the designers profiled by the museum — among them Christian Dior and Alexander McQueen — are worshipped by many, the Quant retrospective is the first on a brand that enjoyed democratic appeal.

Among the most emotive donations is a pink cotton blouse, donated by Caroline Hopper, who bought it straight out of Bazaar’s shop window to impress her geologist boyfriend on his return from Antarctica. Jumpsuits which serve as family heirlooms and pinafores dug out from dusty attics are a recurring feature.

They remind us that Quant was among the first to take fashion to the mainstream. An insight into the Ginger Group — the more affordable diffusion line— is a celebration of this with examples of interchangeable separates and the aptly titled “snob pinafore” on display.

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Unsurprisingly, the exhibition also amplifies Quant’s point of view as a feminist designer. There’s a section that explores the way she borrowed codes from menswear. Her trousers and durable suiting fabrics appealed to women with busy, working lives to lead and who no longer sought fashion in the gaze of their mothers.

Moreover, the show seeks to capture the mood of liberation from Quant’s heyday. Archive footage of her famous catwalk spectacles show models ditching the debutante look being peddled elsewhere to skip down the runway in lace-trimmed boxers.

A short film in which Quant can be heard calling for “relaxed clothes” that allow the wearer to feel “sexy” is another power addition.

It’s this progressive attitude that placed Quant — “the first of many things” — at the centre of a youthquake which was watched from across the globe.

Her success abroad — not least in America, where they devoured her “quirky individualism” — is expressed through snapshot-style photography and garments from a longstanding partnership with the department store JC Penny. It took Quant’s aesthetic to the masses via a line named Chelsea Girl. A JC Penny catalogue shoot, featuring model Jean Shrimpton photographed by David Bailey, reminds us how iconic Quant’s appeal has become.

For those who remember Quant’s era, and her name as a defining feature in their wardrobes, this exhibition offers plentiful moments of nostalgia. Among them the ad campaign for the coveted Cry Baby mascara and a cabinet of Butterick patterns which were as crucial to Mary Quant fans as Zara is to 21st-century fans of fast fashion.

For newcomers to Quant, a designer who set out to create clothes for women who wanted to “retain their precious freedom”, there’s so much to learn. And not just in a historical sense.

At a time in which brands are placing more and more value on the role of the fashion influencers, Quant emerges as a pioneer. With her Vidal Sassoon five-point cut and dedication to a new age for womankind defined by joy, playfulness and empowerment, she lived and breathed her brand.

More than this, she Quant the same life for her customers — then made it her life’s work to get it for them.

From April 6 until Feb 16, Mary Quant is at the V&A, SW7, vam.ac.uk

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