Mary Quant, the visionary fashion designer whose colorful, sexy miniskirts epitomized London in the 1960s and influenced youth culture around the world, has died. She was 93.
LONDON — Mary Quant, the visionary fashion designer whose colorful, sexy miniskirts epitomized London in the 1960s and influenced youth culture around the world, has died. She was 93.
Quant’s family said she died “peacefully at home” in Surrey, southern England, on Thursday.
Quant helped popularize the miniskirt – some credit her with inventing it – and the innovative tights and accessories that were an integral part of the look. She also created dresses and other simple mix-and-match garments that had an element of whimsy.
Some compared her impact on the fashion world with The Beatles’ impact on pop music.
“I think it was a happy confluence of events, which is really what fashion is so often all about,” said Hamish Bowles, international editor at large for American Vogue magazine. “She was the right person with the right sensibility in the right place at the right time. She appeared on the scene at the exact cusp of the ’60s.”
Quant was also an astute businesswoman and one of the first to understand how branding herself as a creative force could help her sustain her business and branch out into new fields, like cosmetics, he said.
Alexandra Shulman, former editor-in-chief of British Vogue, wrote on Twitter: “RIP Dame Mary Quant. A leader of fashion but also in female entrepreneurship – a visiona
