Juxtapoz Art and Culture-Spring_2019

36 SPRING 2019

FASHION

Mary Quant

Fashion At Play At The V&A

Thinking back to how Mary Quant unsheathed

bodies from beige hosiery and long skirts, I’ll go out

on an unshackled limb to say she almost single-

handedly brought freedom of movement and

expression to fashion, as in the clothes we wear to

run for the train or hop out of a truck. Who better

than London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, holder of

the largest public collection of Dame Mary Quant’s

garments, to mount an exhibit that vibrates with

Brit-quake—the fun kind when it meant Beatles,

not Brexit?! Co-curator of the show, Stephanie

Wood, fills us in on the designer who declared,

“Good taste is death. Vulgarity is life.”

Gwynned Vitello: Can you describe the social and

economic scene in London when Mary Quant

emerged? This so-called Fashion Quake couldn’t

have happened anywhere else, right?

Stephanie Wood: Mary Quant came out of gloomy,

post-war Britain, with rationing still in place until

1954, and in many ways, her designs are a reaction

against the drabness and austerity of the time. Her

colorful and fun garments reflected the optimism

of that period, with growing affluence and social

mobility of young people benefiting from further

education and higher wages. She revolutionized

style for women, harnessing youth, street style

and mass production and ultimately defined the

spirit of the swinging ’60s.

What would you say she took away from art

school, besides meeting her husband, who

seemed to be a great influence?

As a teenager, Quant longed to study fashion

design, but her parent insisted she follow them

into teaching, which was a more conventional

career choice for a woman. As a compromise, she

trained as an art teacher at Goldsmiths College.

Attending art school had a profound impact

on the course of her life; not only because she

met her husband—trumpet-playing aristocratic

Alexander Plunkett Greene, but because art

school exposed her to a network of free-thinking

artists, designers and bohemians who shared her

vision of building a progressive, new identity for

post-war Britain.

Would you agree that humor and having fun

guided her designs? What else about Mary’s

personality had an effect on her work?

Humor and fun played a huge part in Quant’s

designs and ultimate success. Her garments

were distinctive and playful, often giving witty

and irreverent names such as Banana Split,

Hot Dog, Snob and Booby Traps (for her single

triangle-shaped bras.) A key part of her success

came from her vision to see fashion as a means of

communicating new attitudes, ideas and change

for women. She was also defiant and daring,

pushing the boundaries of what was accessible for

women to wear, and liberating young women from

the stifling rules and regulations and conformity

of her mother’s generation.

Her creativity enabled her to be a prolific designer,

churning out hundreds of sketches each year

Above: Mary Quant selecting fabric, 1967 © Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images