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Home » RIP, Mary Quant – and the fashions of the 60s

RIP, Mary Quant – and the fashions of the 60s

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an obituary of Mary Quant, who practically invented the kicky women’s fashions of the 60s. I hadn’t thought about Quant in umpteen years. But looking at the photos there and at other articles about her brought back memories of that time and the clothes we wore.

The 60s are often thought of as the hippie years, but before all that there was the British invasion, not just of rock and pop music but also of fashion. I remember exactly and precisely when I was first encountered the latter. It was in the summer of 1963, and I met a group of teenaged British girls whose clothes immediately struck me as very different from ours and extremely cool. It wasn’t just the short skirts – it was the cut of those skirts, which were A-line hip-huggers framed by similarly low-slung belts on the hip. Some of the girls may have had little caps on, too. Something like this, only nicer:

And their haircuts, too – so trendy, so new, so fun.

One of the things I remember them asking me and my friends was what we thought of the Beatles. “Who are they?” we asked, and that evoked squeals of shock from the British girls. “You’ve never heard of the Beatles?” They simply couldn’t believe we were so provincial. They went on and on about them, and I filed the information away for future reference. I didn’t have long to wait; the Beatles came to America the next February, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I have the strange quirk of memory that I tend to remember all the clothing I’ve ever owned, and so I recall the British- and Quant-inspired clothing I had in the 60s, before everyone grew their hair long and wore only jeans, t-shirts, shawls, and beads. I wish I had some of those pre-hippie clothes now, even though they wouldn’t fit. They were wonderful.

Alas, I don’t even have any photos of those clothes. Back then, I probably didn’t even own a camera. But I do have a photo from a little later, where I”m wearing something similar. Unfortunately, it’s a black and white picture, so it doesn’t show that this dress was a very bright shocking pink. The chain belt around the hips was gold (not real gold, of course). The skirt was actually what was called culottes – split into pants – and it was short but not mega-short. You can just see the edge of the hem at the bottom of the photo. I’m standing with my boyfriend at the time, who was visiting me:

No, I don’t look like that now. And no, I don’t have that dress anymore. But that was the sort of thing we wore every day – dresses or skirts, not really very casual at all by today’s standards, but very attractive and very fun. Of course, it helped to be young.

Comments

RIP, Mary Quant – and the fashions of the 60s — 51 Comments

  1. I love this picture, Neo! I’m a bit younger than you, and was about 7 when the Beatles came on the scene in the US. But I totally remember those fashion trends!

  2. Delightful photo.

    Anybody recognize these words? “Jean-Paul Belmondo and Mary Quant got stoned to say the least.”

  3. In answer to Mac @ 3:10

    Sunny South Kensington by Donovan. When I lived in London I lived in Maida Vale (around the corner from Abbey Road and just down the street from Sir Paul) and my GF lived in Kensington. Love London, miss those days.

  5. Model #3 (green skirt) on the front of the Simplicity envelope reminds me of Dylan Mulvaney. Wouldn’t he of the long thin legs and no bosom to speak of look fetching in this outfit?

  7. Some time later, the point being if some is good more is better, the skirts got shorter and tighter. The women wearing them were probably the last cohort to wear nylons because when they sat on something, it wasn’t their skirt. And some of those classroom seats were COLD.

    Wondered what the point was; more unwanted attention from horny guys was a good thing? Young women didn’t have to do that to attract attention from horny guys.

  8. Neo:

    I’m two years younger than you, but I well remember the Beatles’s arrival and the times you’ve described.

    Thanks for posting the picture of you and your ex-boyfriend. Beautiful, of course, but you should see what I looked like in those years. I was so young and dumb; but, more than once I was called pretty boy burned, and all these years later, I’m still insulted by those words.

  9. Speaking of COLD is that snow on the ground? Must have been cold in short skirt and no sleeves.

  10. I don’t remember the 60 s since I was not born till 70, but I do remember “simplicity” sewing patterns. What percent of young women today even know how to sew? Probably , very , very small percent. Some of the more traditional, almost fundamentalist Christian families that were homeschooling long before 2020 likely still teach sewing to the girls. Just as the boys in those families seem to be taught traditional ” man skills” such as carpentry, hunting, etc…

  12. PA Cat, no, Mulvaney doesn’t have hips.

    Not very many women sew clothes now, and it can be hard to find nice dressmaker fabric. Quitting supplies are plentiful, but not dressmaking.

  13. Your boyfriend had the regulation uniform, too, I see: (presumably) wheat-colored Levis, button-down shirt, V-neck sweater (can’t see what I assume were his highly polished oxblood Bass Weejuns). Very “collegiate” (the term then used to distinguish one major high school student track from the other, which went by variously unflattering names and today might just be called the Deplorables). Boyfriend was a hunk, and you of course were gorgeous.

  14. I didn’t have long to wait; the Beatles came to America the next February, and the rest, as they say, is history.

    My Beatles story concerns my oldest female cousin on my mother’s side of the family– she became a fan of the Fab Four to the point that my aunt (her mother) complained to my mother about my cousin’s obsession. My mother laughed and hauled out a photo of my aunt in a classic 1947 bobby soxer getup that she had worn to a Frank Sinatra concert at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City. You can see from the photo that my aunt was screaming hysterically as Ol’ Blue Eyes was cuddling the microphone on stage. That ended my aunt’s complaints about my cousin’s enthusiasm for the Beatles.

  15. Mulvaney doesn’t have hips.

    He will, if he drinks enough Bud Light– or switches to a real beer.

  18. @TommyJay: I was exactly the right age to be overwhelmed by Diana Rigg (Emma Peel) when the Avengers hit tv.

    Never have really gotten over it.

  19. very nice pictures,

    i’d never heard of mary quant before this week, then again I didn’t follow sixties fashion that closely, I did see ‘blow up’ recently, and it was a touchstone of that era,

  20. 70’s for me was hip huggers and gaucho pants with boots. Hot pants. And high waisted jeans. Sexy but not slutty.

  23. Jean Shrimpton, Patty Boyd, Julie Christie, Jane Asher—sigh. Even out in the sticks we knew that was the kind of girlfriend we wanted— sophisticated, but down to earth and fun. Look at A Hard Day’s Night! The lads got to have fun nonstop. That was the dream.

    Neo— you had the look.

  24. Oh yeah—I went through high school wearing wheat jeans or chinos, button down oxford cloth shirts, and shetland wool sweaters from Brooks Brothers— and weejans. OMG! I am wearing the same outfit right now.

  25. When I lived in London I lived in Maida Vale (around the corner from Abbey Road and just down the street from Sir Paul) and my GF lived in Kensington. Love London, miss those days.

    Telemachus:

    I wouldn’t mind hearing some stories from that era…

  26. I had a Nehru jacket and thin ties. That’s about the only thing I wore that wasn’t just plain everyday shirts and trousers. No Jean, did not and do not wear them. Bellbottoms came later, in Blue, White and Dark Blue.

  27. Re: Sunny South Kensington / Donovan

    Mac, Telemachus:

    (Good catch, Mac!)

    Adding on, I would note that while today Donovan is mostly remembered as a washed-up flower child (a reputation not entirely unearned), he had a streak of hot breakthrough rock albums in the latter half of the 60s, from “Sunshine Superman” to “Barabajabal,” rivaling that of Dylan, the Stones and the Beatles.

    Amazing, rockin’ stuff. And why not? Donovan had members of Led Zeppelin and the Jeff Beck Group as session players. He even had Paul McCartney and John McLaughlin (jazz guitar legend) playing with him.

    Then Donovan lost the It and never got It back. I’ve wondered why. Maybe that moment passed. Maybe the drugs gave out.

    Mickie Most produced most of those Donovan albums. He became more controlling and pop-oriented, and drew back from acts like the Yardbirds and Donovan. Maybe Donovan needed Most for an edge.

    I don’t know. But I love an anecdote that after Donovan finished “Sunshine Superman” in early 1967 Mickie Most told Donovan that under no circumstances was he to allow Paul McCartney to hear the song, lest McCartney copy it.

    Thus Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman” beat the Beatles’ “Revolver” to psychedelic rock.

  28. I was born in the mid-50’s. My older brothers and sisters were well aware of the 1960’s culture so I absorbed it too.

    As MollieG commented above: “Your boyfriend had the regulation uniform”

    Yup. I dressed that way for ‘dates’. But I don’t think I ever looked that good. Even in my dreams.

    Thanks for posting the picture Neo!

  29. huxley & Telemachus: Donovan’s best, i.e. his first half-dozen or so albums, was as good as it gets. I think Hurdy Gurdy Man is underrated, btw.

    I was in London for about two weeks in the late summer of ’67. I don’t really have any stories, just a few very vivid memories. Like hearing Jimi Hendrix for the first time, having gone into a record store just for that purpose because I’d been hearing so much about him.

  30. Interesting memories. Fashion? I may have heard the name Mart Quant, but it probably didn’t register on me. My fashions were restricted to wash khakis and Navy-blue uniforms.

    I was 27 in 1960 and now that I look back on it, the 60s were the ten most intense years of my life.

    I was teaching formation and gunnery at NAAS Whiting Filed from 1960-62. Then one year of Navy Post Graduate school. Then three years in the squadron in which I did my service in Vietnam. I topped that off with eighteen months recruiting Naval Aviators at northern California colleges. Lots of intense experiences as I l recall.

    I was aware of the Beatless, Elvis, the Beach Boys, the Supremes, and others. But they were background noise that I heard on the radio or on a Saturday night at the O Club.

    My wife was still dressing pretty much as she had since we met. Tasteful, conservative clothes that fit well. Shre was a Home Economics teacher when we met, and she knew how to sew. She tailored her outfits to fit properly and always looked attractive to me. Mary Quant’s fashion ideas did not penetrate the Navy culture. That stuff was for the civilians – the people we were defending.

    My life was about doing my job as well as I possibly could. Naval Air had a competitive culture. Every pilot tried to be the best stick in the outfit. The cockpits, ready room, and the hangar bays were filled with testosterone. Everybody knew it and worked to live up to it.

    Civilians and their lives seemed remote to us. When I did my stint as a recruiter, it was as if I had landed on an alien planet. What had happened that they had learned to hate the military and their country? It forced me to re-examine everything I thought I knew. Afte two years of contemplating it all, I was more convinced than ever that what I had learned as a child about serving my country and loving our freedom was right and the SDS, Weathermen, Black Panthers, and others were wrong. And their present-day iterations are wrong as well.

    Unfortunately, fashion and music were not on my radar in the 60s. 🙁

  32. Seeing a young Neo looking up at her beloved shows why Alan Ladd would be put to stand on a box so his co-star could be filmed looking up at him, with all the…sometimes subliminal…emotions that draws out.

  33. Love the price on that pattern envelope at 65 cents. I just looked at current Simplicity patterns at about $16.00 each. Vogue will cost even more.

  34. I did strive to dress that way. My family’s clothing budget limited me. That’s why I started sewing – for a relatively low cost, I could have the trendy clothing.
    I was reading an article about Mary Quant. She said that her style came from her dislike of dressing like a grown-up. To her, that meant putting on a girdle, and becoming more sedate. The style does fit the concept of an eternal girl-child.
    The clothing needs of Baby Boomers drove the fashion industry for years. As we needed longer skirts, in came the maxis and midis. When we needed to go back to work after babies, the Dress for Success look popped up. As we age, comfort fit in clothing becomes important.

  35. All that was 8 or 10 years before my time.

    Gosh Neo, I didn’t know you were a beauty!

  36. The mysterious woman behind the apple reveals her younger self in profile.

    Hearts skip a beat.

  37. Great posture neo, standing plumb as the power pole in the background. No slouch for beauty.

  38. I’m not into fashion and never heard of Mary Quant; however, I do remember culottes. K-8, I was in Catholic school; so, of course, we all wore uniforms. It was a special treat when we didn’t have to wear uniforms. Most of us were day students who lived at home; but, we had fair number of resident students who lived in the school’s dormitory.

    I remember the “uproar” over culottes that some of the girls were wearing one day. Gasp! Dresses that split like shorts or were they shorts that looked like dresses? It didn’t matter, the nuns were in a tizzy over the girls wearing these things. Those girls who were residents (unlike many who were day students) had to go back to their dorm room and change or else they couldn’t go on the field trip.

    One of the day girls explained (or tried to, unsuccessfully) that culottes were more “ladylike” since no one would be able to look up their dresses and therefore the culottes were more modest. That explanation didn’t work, the resident girls still had to go change.

    And yes, I do remember thinking, am I glad that boys didn’t have to worry about such stuff! We just wore slacks (no jeans!) and a pullover shirt that had a collar (no t-shirts). We could wear sneakers as long as they were clean. Boys fashion was so much easier!

  39. Did the civil rights thing a couple of summers in the Sixties. I found the “uniform” handy in enemy territory; wheat jeans, madras shirt, penny loafers. Once was with a young woman–we didn’t let our women off site without a guy–who was quite attractive in a WASP/Celtic fashion, wearing a shapeless–not dowdy but just not “fitting–shift for obvious reasons. Slight, graceful sandals, not the lefties’ choice as big as small snowshoes made of half-cured water buffalo hide with flying strap ends.
    Could have gone anywhere.

  40. Beautiful women in the 1960’s, I was stationed at Fr. Devens, Massachusetts in the fall of 1966 and my lovely young 21 year old bride worked for a bank in Boston, she rode the train to work everyday and one evening later in the year she came home hollering about the skirts some of the young women were wearing. My wife pulled the hem of her dress over half way up her thigh and she said stuff about how could those girls think this was acceptable. Then within six months my dear wife was wearing dresses and skirts much higher than what she told me that one evening.

    By the way that young lovely bride of mine was a ballet major at the University of Oklahoma before we were married in 1966 and she was flexible. The good old days when the women were beautiful and the music was incredible.

  41. You look groovy, Neo. I was in grade school in the sixties, desperate to wear teen clothing, and I remember having a chain belt like that.

  42. And the really crazy thing? I wore exactly what the guy in Neo’s photo is wearing when I was in college. And just last week. And probably ten years from now.

  44. Ohh, the memories! I was a college freshman in ’63-64 and had the chain belt around the hips, the short A-line skirts, the little Mondrian color block shifts with tights–many of which I made myself because I learned to sew and they were really quite simple to make. That fall the Beatles made their first US tour. Because I had a part time job in the Dean’s office and they somehow snagged some tickets for the event, I was able to buy two and went. All I remember was that with all the constant screaming it was impossible to tell whether they were singing or not! That was the one event that has always led my younger brother and sister to hold me in such awe because they were really into the music and concert scene in the 70’s and saw most of the major groups when they were just getting started live at concerts but they never saw the Beatles.

  45. }}} Diana Rigg in the 60’s.

    Yes, but Diana Rigg actually had curves. There was no question she was a woman. But yes, she wore a lot of those styles that Neo talks about… the kind you also saw plenty of in the Austin Powers movies.

    I am technically a full Boomer, but, TBH, I am actually a Bleeding Edge Gen-Xer.

    The dividing line appears to be the Kennedy Assassination, and I’m a good 4y before that, but in HS I was clearly expressing conservative (actually libertarian, but that term was not common then) values while surrounded by liberals.

    I recall watching The Beatles’ Saturday morning cartoon show (though I recall nothing of it), but did not really become a “fan” until I was 12 and discovered Sgt. Pepper and Rubber Soul.

  47. The Beatles first show on Edd Sullivan is still in my minds eye. My family always went to church on Sunday nite. BUT, family friends dropped by that nite. Fred Woodward , my oldest friend and I still talk about that nite and a black and white tv , and John ,Paul , George and Ringo.
    Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you, tomorrow I’ll miss you , remember I’ll always be true !

  48. We had a dress code in school in the late 60’s, so it was madra’s short sleeved button down shirts, cords, and penny loafers. When school let at 3pm for reasons I don’t remember we all pulled our shirt tails out. We were so rebellious.

  49. A few years ago I saw some article about, with a picture of, Mary Quant.

    I’m pretty sure she was the “model” for the short, energetic, black haired costume maker in the the Incredibles movies.

    The mini-skirt was great – I thought at the time. Leading to a LOT more promiscuity, along with the Pill.

    But Libertarian-ish consent based promiscuity between adults, with the Lust but without the commitment of Love, is a cultural mistake. My Dad’s womanizing messed up his first marriage.
    And his second.
    And his third.

    As well as my mother’s first, second, and third marriages.

    The styles that become new and popular are riding a wave of discontent of the past, while guiding the changes in the culture. Easy sex has arguably been better for college educated women & men, but almost certainly worse for the majority non-college group.

    Because “norms” apply to all normals, the norms that help the poor and the low IQ folk the most are better than norms that help the rich & high IQ folk. “Norm comparison” is not yet a much discussed explicit subject.

  50. Tom Grey

    Pretty much with regard to your last paragraph, see Myron Magnet-“The Dream and The Nightmare”

    Or Dalrymple, “The View From The Bottom”.

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