Old friends reminisced about outfits from half a century ago, and old men who’d been dragged there by their wives looked slightly bewildered but seemed to be enjoying themselves. When I went to the exhibition, mothers and daughters gazed adoringly at perfectly tailored jumpsuits and Peter-Pan-neckline, jersey-knit dresses. The twinsets, circle-skirts and pearls that mothers preferred were cast aside for simple, bright, thigh-skimming designs that borrowed from the boys with their waistcoats, zips and tailoring.
CHELSEA CODDINGTON REVIZTO LINKEDIN FULL
Short skirts freed up women’s legs so they could run for the bus at full pelt, PVC rain-coats made even the wettest day less grim, and tights the colour of garish costume-jewellery turned legs into statement pieces. Quant capitalised on this mood with clothes that were bursting with colour and sass. If women could have more control over what was happening inside them, with the introduction of the Pill, it followed that they should have more choice over what they looked like on the outside. This crowd-sourced element and the charming stories that go with it are part of what makes the show so great.Įxuberant, innovative and often very cheeky, her designs were the product of a moment when society’s views of gender were changing.
CHELSEA CODDINGTON REVIZTO LINKEDIN MOD
An aspiring mod from Wales, she found it while trawling flea-markets in London.
More than 1,000 people responded, including Linda Griffiths, whose “prized possession”, a pinstriped raincoat, made the final cut.
Last summer the V& A asked the public if they could help by donating or loaning their own Quant pieces, make-up, photographs and other ephemera. It focuses on the years between 19 when Quant’s popularitiy was at its peak in Britain and America. More than 100 of Quant’s designs are now on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London in a delightful exhibition that traces the evolution of her visionary, daisy-logoed brand. The models Jean Shrimpton, Twiggy and Grace Coddington all wore her designs, and Quant made coats for George Harrison and Pattie Boyd when they got married in 1966: a black Mongolian-lamb-fur coat for Harrison and a red fox-fur coat for Boyd. She popularised the miniskirt, made trousers an indispensable part of every woman’s wardrobe, and brought the American “house-wear” trend – hot pants, jersey tops, and terry-towelling all-in-ones – to Europe. Mary Quant made a “Chelsea Girl” – lithe, leggy and a little bit unconventional – the thing to be. It became very popular very fast, and soon morphed into Quant’s eponymous brand, which sold clothes and make-up. Instead, in 1955 she and her aristocratic husband, Alexander Plunket Greene, opened a shop called Bazaar, selling a “bouillabaisse” of products (as Quant put it), on the hip and happening King’s Road in Chelsea. A rebellious art-school graduate who once dyed her pubic hair green and trimmed it into the shape of a heart, Quant refused to follow her school-teacher parents’ advice that she become an art teacher. The British fashion designer shook up the industry in the 1960s with her savvily marketed, mass-produced clothes that women could actually move in.
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