Life, Love & Liberty

Sky-high hemlines, cropped tops, and the spirit of revolution in the air… In the heyday of Swinging London, there was no more thrilling or influential place to shop than Bazaar, Mary Quant’s King’s Road boutique. As the designer celebrates her 85th birthday, a new exhibition at the V&A glories in the legacy of her fearless feminist fashions.

- Juliet Nicolson

In an empty, darkened gallery in the depths of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, a succession of stylish women are taking turns to sit on a high stool, speaking to the camera. A journalist, a model, a beauty expert, and a customer, all from the epicenter of fashion’s 1960s revolution, are recording short films for the V&A’s sensational retrospective devoted to the designer Mary Quant. The quartet is united by their memories of the red-headed icon who popularised women’s trousers and tights, invented the skinny-rib sweater and the sack dress, and raised hemlines to audacious heights.

Listening to these fizzing, funny and often moving reminiscences feels like traveling in a Google Earth time machine, zooming in on the decade when Bazaar, Quant’s small shop in the heart of the bohemian King’s Road, formed the nexus of London’s ‘Swinging Chelsea’. Here is the distinguished writer Brigid Keenan, an early champion of Quant’s designs. Here is Jill Kennington, one of the top models of her day, who, all legs and tousled hair, bounded onto a 1960s catwalk to a pop soundtrack in front of a cheering audience. Next up is Joy Debenham-Burton, once in charge of Quant’s pioneering cosmetics range, which came packaged in shiny PVC and imprinted with the designer’s trademark daisy logo, recalling a time when “The Beatles supplied the sound and Mary provided the look”. Finally here is Tereska Pepé, a committed early client who has donated two much-loved pieces to the exhibition, describing how she appeared in her favorite Quant outfits so often that they “fell apart on me even as I wore them”.