How Did Mary Quant Influence the 1960's
Mary Quant and her miniskirt: a symbol for the sixties women.
The sixties gave birth to new waves of contestations and demands in the social life. There began the appearance of hippies, civic rights for Afro-Americans, pacifism and of course feminism.
The Fifties closed mentalities and Quant’s struggle
The fifties were characterised by Christian and family values. Girls were submitted to the father’s authority. Then, they passed under their husband’s domination. They had no (or maybe just a little) access to the work market and thus they stayed home, taking care of house holding and their children. The youth had no say in society. “Young people like me had nowhere to go to keep warm except the cinema. We were bored and frustrated. Uninterested in science and politics — which, in our view, merely led to war — we poured in our thousands into art schools.” In terms of fashion, women had to follow the pathway of their mothers and grand-mothers, wearing long skirts often described as blend and tasteless. It was the perfect uniform for a housewife. And that’s when she realised that “the young must look like the young… The old could, if they wished, look like the young, but the young must not on any account look like the old.” Soon after, she started her fashion revolution.
She didn’t have a good time at first and had to row against the world of conservative values. “[…] the window [of her boutique] would shake and there’d be accompanying shouts of ‘immoral!’ and ‘disgusting!’ as yet another bowler-hatted gent registered his outrage.” She told the Dailymail. She had just opened Bazaar on King’s Road with her husband in 1955 and minds were heavily up-tight at that moment of post-war.
Feminism
Even if feminism is not a 60’s phenomenon, it’s during these years that women finally became independent human beings. In 1961 an enormous invention appeared on the market: the pill. The contraceptive pill gave to women the possibility to control their pregnancy. After
The sixties gave birth to new waves of contestations and demands in the social life. There began the appearance of hippies, civic rights for Afro-Americans, pacifism and of course feminism.
The Fifties closed mentalities and Quant’s struggle
The fifties were characterised by Christian and family values. Girls were submitted to the father’s authority. Then, they passed under their husband’s domination. They had no (or maybe just a little) access to the work market and thus they stayed home, taking care of house holding and their children. The youth had no say in society. “Young people like me had nowhere to go to keep warm except the cinema. We were bored and frustrated. Uninterested in science and politics — which, in our view, merely led to war — we poured in our thousands into art schools.” In terms of fashion, women had to follow the pathway of their mothers and grand-mothers, wearing long skirts often described as blend and tasteless. It was the perfect uniform for a housewife. And that’s when she realised that “the young must look like the young… The old could, if they wished, look like the young, but the young must not on any account look like the old.” Soon after, she started her fashion revolution.
She didn’t have a good time at first and had to row against the world of conservative values. “[…] the window [of her boutique] would shake and there’d be accompanying shouts of ‘immoral!’ and ‘disgusting!’ as yet another bowler-hatted gent registered his outrage.” She told the Dailymail. She had just opened Bazaar on King’s Road with her husband in 1955 and minds were heavily up-tight at that moment of post-war.
Feminism
Even if feminism is not a 60’s phenomenon, it’s during these years that women finally became independent human beings. In 1961 an enormous invention appeared on the market: the pill. The contraceptive pill gave to women the possibility to control their pregnancy. After
Cited: in Alison Adburgham, 1967