In the summer of 2018, the British Victoria and Albert Museum made a public appeal. She asked the public to “dive” into their closets to perhaps find clothes bearing Mary Quatt’s now historic signature. The call was made on the occasion of the British designer’s first major exhibition, which will open at his premises next year. The reaction had touching results with the reappearance of clothing, which was accompanied by personal stories of a symbolic stylistically – and not only – era.

Looking back on fashion’s long journey, there aren’t many creators who truly led and changed their time. Among them was Dame Mary Quaid, who died peacefully at her home in Surrey, England on 13 April at the age of 93.

“The purpose of fashion is to produce fashionable clothes that are accessible to everyone,” Quaid said. She brought it to life through the miniskirt, women’s shorts, printed tights and androgynous lines, ideas that led to a different casual women’s wardrobe reflecting the transition to a new, much freer era.

“Mary Quaid was born in dreary post-war Britain, where until 1954 limited food distribution was by voucher, and in many ways her clothes were a reaction to the dullness and austerity of the time,” the curators of the exhibition told me. V&A, Jenny Lister and Stephanie Wood in an interview published in Vogue Greece. “Her colorful and playful clothing reflects the optimism of a period when young people became more prosperous and mobile, receiving additional education and higher wages. A pioneering career has inspired and liberated women from suffocating rules and having to dress like their mothers.”

Being in the right place at the right time can be revolutionary. So, Mary Quaid lived in London during the swinging sixties, a time when all eyes were on the streets of the British capital and the sounds of hits like “Love Me Do” by the up-and-coming Beatles, leaving the more conservative studios. behind Parisian haute couture.

“The godmother of accessible designer fashion for all,” as Jenny Lister and Stephanie Wood have quoted me, Mary Quaid was born in February 1930 to Welsh parents in London. When she graduated from high school, her desire was to study fashion. However, her mother directed her to pursue a degree in design and art from Goldsmiths College, from which she graduated in 1953. That same year, she also met her future husband, Alexander Plunkett Green, grandson of Irish baritone Harry Plunkett Green. Quandt then began working as an assistant hatmaker in fashionable London’s Mayfair.

“The purpose of fashion is to produce fashionable clothes that are accessible to everyone,” he said. She did it herself through a miniskirt.

Quaid and Plunkett Green married in 1957 and had a son, Orlando, in 1970. In the meantime, the couple also collaborated on a business level. In 1955, together with a friend, they opened Bazaar, a small shop on the famous King’s Road. The store offered youth clothing and accessories designed by Quaid and her former classmates. At the same time, it was a cozy place to listen to music and enjoy a drink, a real meeting place for the trendy local youth.

“The clothes I made were perfect for the teen trend, pop music, espresso bars and jazz clubs,” the designer wrote in one of her autobiographies. And not only. With a black daisy logo, Quad eventually created a brand based on products with a clear identity that were mass-produced using then-innovative raw materials such as nylon, jersey and PVC.

Along with the emergence of modern style, in which she played a leading role, Quandt noticed that this innovative fresh fashion needed a corresponding radical makeover. She has also firmly entered this space by creating popular products such as waterproof mascara. Mary Quant makeup products have proved particularly popular, especially in Japan, where they continue to be made and distributed around the world.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Mary Quaid also turned to home furnishings, and in 1988 she designed the interior of the Mini 1000 car. companies. company when the latter was bought by Japanese investors.

Hours after the announcement of Mary Quaid’s death on April 13, social media was flooded with images and testimonials of her life and work. Among the thousands of posts, British journalist Susie Menkes shared photos of herself wearing Mary Quant miniskirts with her Instagram followers. In one of the pictures, the date was 1966, when the journalist and fashion critic became the first female editor of a student newspaper at the University of Cambridge. At that time, Menkes, an aspiring journalist, arranged an interview with the creator.

“I still remember the trip to London. I was wearing fishnet tights, square heels and a skirt so short that I dared to meet the famous designer. “Quad was a petite woman who was somewhat self-deprecating, claiming her success was down to luck, letting her husband do the talking most of the time,” Menkes wrote on Instagram. “A more experienced journalist would have asked her if she felt at the time that she had changed society or simply walked away with the stylistic spirit of the time. Approaching the issue with 21st century distance, it’s clear that Mary Quaid was an important part of the cultural revolution that is still going on.”