Mary Quant's Bazaar Mary Quant's Bazaar Mary Quant, designer of the mini skirt, opened her boutique here Location: Markham House, 138a King's Road, Chelsea, sw3 4uu Description: In October 1955, she teamed up with her husband, Alexander Plunkett-Greene, and an accountant, Archie McNair, to open a clothes shop on the Kings Road in London called Bazaar. Greene had inherited 5,000 pounds on his 21st birthday, and the three decided to go into business together. They rented Markham House, a three-story building here in London's artist district of Chelsea. They opened a boutique on the first floor and a restaurant in the basement. They called the boutique Bazaar. Its owners knew little about the business beyond Quant's fashion philosophy: I can't bear over-accessorization... a white hat worn with white gloves, white shoes and a white umbrella, she declared in Quant by Quant. Rules are invented for lazy people who don't want to think for themselves.

True to her philosophy, Quant searched for the clothes she herself wanted to wear, selling miniskirts, funky dresses, bright tights and bras called Booby Traps to young people. The shop capitalized on the buying power of baby boomers, those born during the sharp increase in birthrate following the end of World War II, who were beginning to grow into teenagers. Naive about the mechanics of running a retail business, Quant and her partners sold their wares with a markup much smaller than any nearby store, without realizing they were actually taking a loss on many items. It was no wonder we did such a roaring trade the moment we opened, she later wrote. The shop was constantly stripped bare--sometimes we hardly had enough to dress the window--because we never bought enough of anything. Quant quickly discovered that manufacturers weren't making the kinds of clothes she wanted to sell, so she set up her own manufacturing outfit in her apartment, hiring a dressmaker to come during the day and help. Quant herself sewed dresses at night to sell the next day in the shop. I had to sell one day's output before I had the money to go out and buy more material, she recalled, noting that at first, I didn't think of myself as a designer.

I just knew that I wanted to concentrate on finding the right clothes for the young to wear and the right accessories to go with them. Struggling to make ends meet and suffering ridicule from the press and some passers-by, Quant persevered. In less than ten years, her clothing designs was world famous, selling in 150 shops in Britain, 320 stores in the United States, and throughout the world: France, Italy, Switzerland, Kenya, South Africa, Australia, Canada, and more. The miniskirt, for which she is arguably most famous, became one of the defining fashions of the 1960s. The miniskirt was developed separately by Andre Courrges, and there is disagreement as to who came up with the idea first. Mary Quant named the miniskirt after her favourite make of car, the Mini. In the basement here was (until 2008), a club called the Bosun's Locker, which became a haven for the nu-folk scene and where Laura Marling and Noah and the Whale, Mumford and Sons, etc. got kick started on the way to stardom.

Mary Quant, the Miniskirt and the Chelsea Palace on the King’s Road « Another Nickel In The Machine Bazaar in 1955 Bazaar and the Markham Arms (now a Santander bank) today The King’s Road in 1958. The Bluebird Garage can be seen down the road at numbers 330-350. The garage was opened in 1923 and was the largest in Europe with room for 300 cars in the main garage. The King’s Road today-ish. The garage is now a restaurant of course. The shop, which they called Bazaar, opened in November 1955 and was an almost immediate success with the stock flying out of the door. Although initially this was partly to do with naively selling their clothes and accessories too cheaply thus not only losing money on everything they sold but also upsetting the local shops and their wholesalers by undercutting the fixed retail prices. It wasn’t long, however, that the trio of entrepreneurs realised that by luck they were on to a huge thing: We were in at the beginning of a tremendous renaissance in fashion. It was not happening because of us.

It was simply that, as things turned out, we were a part of it. Mary Quant and Alexander Plunket Green Mary Quant and APG worked incredibly hard. They had also opened a restaurant in the basement of Markham House which soon became the place to come to in Chelsea. But if they worked hard they also played hard – incredibly they were still both only twentyone. According to Quant the couple always found time to visit the music hall shows at the Chelsea Palace theatre down the road from Bazaar. At the time the shows were often slightly risqué in nature. “We went once a week” said Mary. “the Chelsea Palace chorus girls wore very naughty fur bikini knickers.” It must have been a very funny show… Paul Raymond’s ‘Burlesque’ was performed at the Chelsea Palace in 1955 Burlesque by Paul Raymond – how kind of Jeye’s Fluid to sponsor the show (see the bottom of the bill) Chelsea Palace of Varieties The Chelsea Palace of Varieties had opened for business in 1903 at 232-42 King’s Road on the corner of Sydney Street opposite the Town Hall. It seated 2524 people.

Marie Lloyd appeared there in 1909 and performed an act so vulgar that a complaint was made to the London County Council. By 1923 it started to be used as a cinema as well as showing straight plays and ballets. In 1925 it was taken over by Variety Theatres Consolidated and from then until its closure in March 1957 it presented live theatre, often of a risque nature. One of the shows put on in 1955 called ‘Burlesque’ was produced by Paul Raymond at the beginning of his career. During the latter part of 1956 the Chelsea Palace ran a Radio Luxembourg talent competition and it was won for four weeks in a row by the Fantasie coffee shop regulars – the Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group. McDevitt described his flat in Chelsea at the time: The flat I the King’s Road was an ideal pad in an ideal position. It provided a haven for many an itinerant jazzer, visiting American folkies and unsuspecting embryo groupies. During the Chelsea Palace talent contests McDevitt met a twenty year old Glaswegian singer called Anne Wilson whose stage name was Nancy Whiskey.

Within six months Nancy Whiskey and McDevitt’s skiffle group had recorded a single called Freight Train. Amazingly, to most people concerned, it actually ended up in the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. They even appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in the US along side the Everly Brothers six years before the Beatles’ famous appearance. The particularly British institution of skiffle only lasted two or three years perhaps but its influence was long-lasting. It was a do-it-yourself reaction to the bland mediocrity that many young people felt about the popular music of the time. This was echoed twenty years later in the mid-seventies with punk which had a lot of similarities with skiffle. The Kings Road played its part in that too. With his new success Chas McDevitt opened his own coffee bar in Berwick Street in Soho which he called, of course, the Freight Train coffee bar. The swinging sixties were a bit of a myth this is what the King’s Road really looked like. The King’s Road: Sundays weren’t for shopping in the Sixties In 1957 the Chelsea Palace was renamed the Chelsea Granada and was to become a cinema.

Although almost immediately the building was leased to Granada Television, within the same company, and the stalls in the theatre were replaced by a studio floor and it became Granada Studio 10 for the next eight years to augment the specially built studio complex in Manchester. Sidney Bernstein, who with his brother Cecil owned Granada and which had recently won the franchise license to broadcast commercial television in the north west of England, numbered their studios by just using even numbers. This was simply so as to appear they owned more studios than they did. It was actually the last of the London theatre to TV studio conversions. The Shepherd’s Bush Empire was now a BBC studio and Associated Television had already converted the Hackney Empire and the Wood Green Empire. Incidentally it was at the Wood Green theatre in 1918 that the American magician known as Chung Ling Soo, (or William Robinson as he was really called) was tragically shot and fatally injured while performing his infamous act which involved catching (or not) a bullet between his teeth. His last words were “Oh my God. Something’s happened. Lower the curtain.” It shocked everyone. Not so much that he had been shot but that he wasn’t Chinese and spoke perfect English.

William Robinson, aka Chung Ling Soo, told almost no one that he wasn’t Chinese. Boris Karloff wonders ‘Who Killed Chung Ling Soo’. Studio 10 was used for the long running and extremely popular comedy series – the Army Game which ran for five years from 1957. An incredible 154 episodes were broadcast and the cast included many that would become household names for decades to come – Alfie Bass, Geoffrey Palmer, Bill Fraser, Dick Emery and Bernard Bresslaw and the writers included a young John Junkin, Marty Feldman and Barry Took. The Army Game Another very popular show that came from Granada’s King’s Road studio was the variety show called Chelsea at Nine. It ran for three series and purposely took advantage of the studio’s location in the capital to feature artists that were appearing in town. This meant that sometimes you would get one of the finest jazz musicians on earth playing after a comedian that would struggle to get on the end of a bill in Skegness. Ella Fitzgerald once had to introduce an act who was appearing after her on the show as ‘the world’s greatest song and dance spoons man’. She laughed and laughed and simply couldn’t do it.

On the 23rd of February 1959 a very gaunt and very unsteady Billie Holiday was helped up on stage and performed three songs. Strange Fruit, Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone and I Loves You Porgy. Luckily for us the shows were by then being recorded but they proved to be the last she ever made and she died just five months later of cirrhosis of the liver in a New York hospital on 17th July. Only Strange Fruit and I Loves You Porgy still survive. Billie Holiday – I Loves You Porgy The Chelsea Palace was shamefully demolished by developers in 1966 after Granada vacated the premises. If one day you’re buying a sofa in Heals which is situated on the corner of the King’s Road and Sydney Street where the Chelsea Palace once stood, you might take a few moments to note that one of the world’s greatest ever singers sang a few songs maybe just where you’re standing. Heals today and not the Chelsea Palace King’s Road in 1967 By the time the Chelsea Palace was demolished the miniskirt was ubiquitous on the King’s Road and pretty well everywhere else.

In the ten years since she and APK had opened Bazaar she had become an international success. Quant and her clothes were an integral part of the so-called Swinging London. At the age of 32, dressed of course in a miniskirt, she received an OBE from the Queen. Brilliant Pathé footage of Mary Quant in 1967 Loudon Wainwright who wrote a column for Life magazine and was based in London In 1967 Loudon Wainwright, father of Loudon Wainwright III and grandfather to Rufus and Martha was working in London for Life magazine. In his column called ‘The View From Here’ he wrote: Until very recently one of my least crucial handicaps has been a sort of built-in propriety which, for example has forced me to avert my eyes whenever I say that a lady was going to have difficulty with her skirt. By difficulty I mean that the skirt was threatening to go up too high – in a chair, in the wind, as its owner disembarked from a taxi. Loudon continues… I’m not sure how this propriety has survived the miniskirt fashions…but a few days of lovely spring weather in London have abolished it forever.

The balmy sunshine there brought out the miniskirts in mind-reeling profusion. The town was positively atwinkle with thighs…the training of years misspent in the useless protection of female modesty betrayed me, and I had to learn how to stare. Yet soon the delightful truth that I was supposed to notice - burst upon me.. A few months later Mary Quant was interviewed in the Guardian That’s the thing about today’s fashions – they’re sexy to look at but really more puritan than they’ve ever been. In European countries where they ban mini-skirts in the streets and say they’re an invitation to rape, they don’t understand about stocking tights underneath. Miniskirts and men outside Bazaar in 1966/7 Mary Quant and APG in 1964 King's Road, London InfoBritain - Travel Through History In The UK : King's Road, London King's Road, London The King's Road in the Chelsea area of London was originally a private route used by Charles II to travel from London to his palace at Kew. It remained a route reserved for royal use until 1830.

The King's Road is now most famous for its clothes shops, and particularly for its connections with fashion movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Coincidentally, fashion as we know it today has important roots during the reign of Charles II. Until the sixteenth century there was general resistance to people copying the fashions of society's leaders. Indeed laws were often in place to keep the clothing of royalty exclusive. But this changed in the seventeenth century. In October 1666 Charles decided to create a fashion that would make him distinctive. He chose a Persian inspired coat, over a long vest. In previous ages Charles's royal look would probably have been protected by law, but in this new age people started copying the royal outfit. We wear the descendents of Charles II's coat and long vest today, in the shape of an overcoat and a waistcoat. World's End - Vivienne Westwood's shop in the King's Road Charles would have been pleased that his former royal road is now linked so strongly with fashion. In the 1960s there were many independent clothing designers selling their clothes in the King's Road.

Mary Quant opened her first shop, Bazaar here in 1955. In the 1970s Vivienne Westwood, a frustrated school teacher, and her husband Malcolm McLaren, with a background in the East End clothing trade, opened a series of shops in the King's Road, starting with Let It Rock in 1971, Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die in 1973, SEX in 1974, and Seditionaries in 1976. Westwood and McLaren are famous for supplying punk fashions in the mid 1970s. As of 2010 Vivienne Westwood's shop World's End continues to trade in the King's Road. Don't expect to get in for a casual look round though. The door is locked and there's a doorbell. Punk seemed to reject fashion as an aspirational activity, where people would look at what Charles II was wearing and want to wear it to. Punk with its ripped clothes and accessories made from safety pins and razor blades aggressively rejected such notions. But aspiration is a powerful force, on which the entire edifice of fashion is actually built.

Unsurprisingly a one time punk designer became as exclusive as the royalty that once used the King's Road as their own private route. Although the amateurs and independents of the 1960s are not as much in evidence as they were, the King's Road is still a great place to go clothes shopping, with dozens of clothes and accessory shops. The King's Road area also has links with popular music. In the 1960s it was home to members of the Rolling Stones. They would often use the Chelsea Drugstore, a combined pharmacy and record store, with a soda fountain on the second floor. The Chelsea Drugstore is mentioned in the Rolling Stones song You Can't Always Get What You Want. Sadly the Chelsea Drugstore, as of 2010, is a McDonalds restaurant. Another icon of the 1960s, Ian Fleming's character James Bond, lived in a square off the King's Road. John Michael Ingram obituary | Fashion | The Guardian John Michael Ingram obituary Menswear designer whose refined tailoring made his clothes and shops a favourite of 1960s mods The Rolling Stones wearing John Michael Ingram designs, c1963.

Photograph: Mark and Colleen Hayward/Redferns Thursday 3 July 2014 10.09 EDT First published on Thursday 3 July 2014 10.09 EDT Share on Messenger Close John Michael Ingram, who has died aged 83, was the least flamboyant of the designers who created the male peacockry of 1960s England. The founder of the John Michael shop (originally on Kings Road, Chelsea) and menswear label, he never cared for the Carnaby Street carnival. His discreet, refined style made him the designer of choice for mods, who protected their precious John Michael threads with their parkas. Ingram was a fashion lifer. His parents owned Wakeford's, a women's clothing shop for debutantes and their mothers on Kings Road, which in the postwar years was otherwise arid of fashion. He left school at 16, had no training, and later said he was in "a complete and utter fog of ignorance, but not bogged down by conventional thought" when he began to work as a buyer.

From the start he was interested in the sources of textiles and insistent on brand identity: even the smallest batch of garments had to be emphatically labelled with the Wakeford's name. Mary Quant , who opened her Chelsea boutique Bazaar in 1955, knew Ingram just as "the boy" at Wakeford's, and was surprised when, in 1957, he opened his own tiny shop five minutes' walk from her, selling men's shirts in unusual fabrics – sheer Swiss voile and gingham, for instance, in bright tints and prints – inspired by the new Italian menswear, which was aimed squarely at the young. At that time, the sharpest menswear in London was sold in Soho. Ingram appreciated shops, such as Cecil Gee in Shaftesbury Avenue, that imported the American and Italian styles, or copied them, but he felt they were louche: "Cecil Gee was fun and important, but basically bad taste. I tried to get the same excitement but without the vulgarity." He was similarly dismissive of John Stephen , the entrepreneur who colonised Carnaby Street: "Carnaby took what I had done and popularised it," he said.

He considered the Carnaby Street phenomenon to be about social revolution rather than fashion. Nevertheless, Ingram soon opened Sportique, his own Soho shop, "crystallising what people wanted". It was situated right next to the 2i's coffee bar in Old Compton Street, a music venue that became known as the birthplace of British rock'n'roll. The decor of the shop was classy but not fusty, and the stock, recalled one customer, was "slick and trendy": hipster trousers; short, narrow, side-vented jackets; fine-fibred knitwear; non-utilitarian ties. John Michael Ingram outside his Savile Row headquarters. Photograph: Frank Hermann/Times Newspapers Ltd Sportique attracted an artistic clientele, including, over the next decade, Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Marc Bolan, Bob Dylan, the members of the Who, and the Beatles, who bought black polonecks there – although not Malcolm McLaren , who thought it "a bit too subversive". Alan Bennett described first meeting Peter Cook in 1960, and finding him dressed entirely by Sportique: shortie raincoat, bum-freezer jacket and winklepickers.

(Cook then dragged Bennett along to the shop, but failed to convince him to shed his tweeds.) Young professionals followed in the footsteps of the creative set. Ingram expanded during the 60s to a bigger shop in Kings Road, and to Bond Street, St Ann's Arcade in Manchester and other upmarket locations. He began to attract a clientele he had not expected: working-class teens. He had no plans to attract mods, but they came anyway, because they shared Ingram's preoccupation with quality fabric and tailoring. He was surprised and pleased that 16-year-olds saved for months to buy a John Michael suit. (He was less happy with the huge shoplifting problem.) Jack English, who sourced the vintage costumes for the nostalgic 1979 mod film Quadrophenia said: " There were only about 300 guys in the whole of London who could then afford authentic mod suits, and … we located this wonderful genuine silk John Michael exclusive." It was later wrecked by seawater when they were filming the Brighton beach riot scene.

The John Michael company went public in 1965, by which time its head office was in Savile Row, where Ingram set up a formal, if larky, tailoring business (his double-breasted "spirit of old Broadcasting House" suit for Roy Strong, now in the V&A , is a witty example). He had 17 shops, and exported to the US (with Quant, he represented swinging London in the then-smart JC Penney stores), Japan and Europe. He also consulted for major manufacturers, and, having been solely responsible for the look of his clothes, shops and packaging, began to employ talented newcomers – Tom Gilbey (later to be a Savile Row tailor) as designer, Jeremy Hackett (later founder of the menswear label Hackett London) as salesman. At its high point – when Ingram had the Savile Row premises rebuilt with bronze mirrors and white carpets after a 1971 fire – the business also encompassed branches of his Guys and Dolls shops, and of Westerner, a pioneering chain selling jeans.

With massive increases in the prices of raw materials during the mid-1970s recession, the retail clothing business changed structure, and Ingram's style, which prioritised the garments over the promotion (he preferred word-of-mouth publicity), went out of fashion. The chains, the stores and the tailoring business closed, and Ingram transferred his considerable knowledge to fashion forecasting. He founded the Design Intelligence Forecasting Agency in 1979, for many years publishing reliable guides to trends based on his hands-on feel for the actual materials. Until he was 81, he went daily to his office. He is survived by his wife, Sonia, and their children, Guy and Tamara. • John Michael Ingram, menswear designer and fashion forecaster, born 1 February 1931; died 13 June 2014 Shop Mary Quant Mary Quant opened Bazaar, a boutique on the King's Road, in 1955 at a time when 'fashion wasn't designed for young people'. Quant was influenced by Chelsea beatniks and dance outfits she remembered from childhood. Famed for popularising, if not inventing, the mini skirt, her clothes were made up of simple shapes combined with strong colours.

By 1963 her success led to the opening of a second branch of Bazaar in Knightsbridge. She later launched the Ginger Group, a lower priced line designed to appeal to an even wider clientele. Mary Quant - Fashion Designer | Designers | The FMD Mary Quant A word from the EIC Partnerships / Cooperations Become a fashion editor on FMD Content / Usage Questions Why am I listed on FMD? How can I submit content? Credifair (credit for your work) DMCA + Content MGMT the pure fashion news agency January 19th Are Gigi Hadid and Zayn Malik engaged? Ralph Lauren and Karl Lagerfeld to dress Melania Trump? ASAP Rocky and Boy George Star in Dior Homme's New Campaign Irina Shayk Lands Two Vogue Brazil Covers Visit website About Mary Quant was the fashion designer and entrepreneur responsible for the "London Look" of the 60's. She was the inventor of the min-skirt and hot pants.

She proclaimed "good taste is death, vulgarity is life" and summarized the fashion of the 60's as "arrogant, aggressive and sexy." Although she is still designing today, she is largely known for her 60's creations. Mary Quant was born in London, England on February 11th, 1934. From 1950-1953 she attended Goldsmith's College of Art in London. After graduating, she worked for Erik, a London milliner. Meanwhile , Alexander Plunket-Greene and Quant had paired up with a friend named Archie McNair. When Greene, who later became her husband, inherited 5,000 pounds on his 21st birthday, the three decided to go into business together. They rented Markham House, a three-story building on King's Road in London's artist district, Chelsea. In Markham House, they opened a boutique on the first floor and a restaurant in the basement. They called the boutique Bazaar in 1955. Here she sold inexpensive, brightly coloured simple clothes which were immediate hits with young girls and boys.

These included skinny rib jumpers, ready-to-wear short skirts and dresses, coloured tights, hipster belts, PVC garments and sleeveless crochet tops and hats. In 1957 she opened a second boutique. In 1961 Mary Quant showed her first fur collection and launched her first wholesale company. In 1962 she presented her first collection for the American market. She also started to design for J.C. PENNEY of New York. Regardless of whether she invented these items, Quant was one of their major popularisers, largely thanks to the fact that Bazaar was a popular haunt for the fashionable "Chelsea Set" of "Swinging London". By 1961, Quant had opened a second Bazaar in Knightsbridge and by 1965 she was exporting to the U.S.. To keep up with demand, Quant went into mass-production, setting up the Ginger Group in 1963. Struggling to make ends meet and suffering ridicule from the press and some passers-by, Quant persevered.

In less than ten years, her clothing designs was world famous, selling in 150 shops in Britain, 320 stores in the United States, and throughout the world: France, Italy, Switzerland, Kenya, South Africa, Australia, Canada, and more. From 1964-68 she designed for Butterick patterns. In 1965 she launched the mini-skirt in London. A fashion show was held aboard the royal yacht Queen Elizabeth and was a great hit. The same year, she took 30 outfits to the USA and the models in their thigh-high dresses stopped traffic on Broadway and in Times Square in New York. They were seen on American TV. She visited l2 cities in 14 days showing clothes to a non-stop dance routine with pop music accompaniment. She soon had built up a million pound industry, selling to nearly all the countries in the Western world and Japan, designing 28 collections a year. In 1966 Mary Quant received the O.B.E. for her services to the fashion industry, and went to receive this honour from the Queen dressed in a mini-skirt. She published a book "Quant by Quant" in 1966.

The same year, she introduced her famous and highly successful cosmetics line, with it's striking daisy logo. She also launched a footwear line. In 1967 she opened another boutique. In 1970 she introduced hot pants, tight figure-revealing short shorts, made of knit or soft materials, worn with floor length maxi-coats allowed to swing open and knee high boots. These were an instant success. During the 70's and 80's Mary Quant continued to add to her product line, putting her Daisy logo on household furnishings, towels and sheets, knitwear, men's ties, eyewear, hats and even a mod version of the Barbie doll. In 1994 she opened the Mary Quant colour shop for cosmetics and beauty products. In 1996 along with many other designers and celebrities, she joined a product making individual masks which were sold for charity and raised quite a good amount. Her clothes have continued to sell well, even today, but she never again achieved the popularity and volume of sales that she did in the 60's. Her cosmetic line however, sells very well today. Mary Quant is now the CEO of the London house of Fraser.

She also continues to work as a free-lance designer for various companies. At an age when most designers have put down their sketch pads, Mary still oversees all the creative aspects of her atelier just off London's King's Road. As part of the Queen's Jubilee celebrations, various fashion celebrities were alloted a year of the Queen's Reign. Mary Quant has been named Woman of the Year 1955. In 2000, she resigned as director of Mary Quant Ltd., her cosmetics company, after a Japanese buy-out. There are over 200 Mary Quant Colour shops in Japan, where Quant fashions continue to enjoy more popularity. Mary became a grandmother for the first time in August 2002, when her son Orlando Plunket-Greene had a son which they have called Lucas Alexander. All the fashion shows of leading designers in New York, London, Paris and Milan - for both Summer and Fall - have been copying Quant designs. She is not at all angry about it but says she thinks it is great.

The Look She was a wonderful advertisement for her own designs, her short dark Vidal Sassoon hair style with it's fringe and her easy-fitting young-looking blazer jackets, brief swinging skirts and pinafore dresses. Quant designs were slightly influenced by beat dressing but interpreted in a more considered sharper, varied style. Her concept was uncompromisingly young - ten years younger than the high fashion ideal. She designed for a girlish, less developed figure. Her dresses had simple, boat necklines or childlike, round or pointed collars and narrow shoulders and sleeves. Summer and evening dresses were frequently sleeveless and body shaping was very understated, shadowing the breasts and waist to giver a long-torsoed, slightly 20's silhouette and hip-level belts and seaming. The long-waisted look made her flared and pleated skirts look even shorter. They were in fact the shortest on record, and were worn with simple strap over shoes or long boots. Mary's designs spoke for themselves, models enjoyed wearing her clothes at fashion shows. Her publicity and success made traditionally cautious designers alter their attitudes and want their own designs to appeal to the newly important, big spending 16 to 25 year old market.

Perfumes Mary Quant Facts for Kids | KidzSearch.com 3 Other websites Career In November 1955, she teamed up with her husband, Alexander Plunket Greene, and a former solicitor , Archie McNair, to open a clothes shop on the Kings Road in Chelsea called Bazaar. Bazaar's best sellers were small white plastic collars to brighten up black dresses or t-shirts. Black stretch stockings were also popular. Miniskirt Velvet minidress, not by Quant Mini feather-skirt. Not by Quant, but shows the idea is well alive. © Glenn Francis, Skirts had been getting shorter since about 1958 – a development Mary Quant thought was practical and liberating, allowing women to run for a bus. The miniskirt , which she is most famous for, became one of the defining fashions of the 1960s. [4] The miniskirt was also developed separately by André Courrèges and John Bates , [5] and there is disagreement as to who came up with the idea first.

Like most fashion, the short- and ever-shorter skirt was evolving already among fashion-minded young women: the designers who adapted it just helped spread the style and, in Quant's case, gave it a name. Mary Quant named the miniskirt after her favourite make of car, the Mini . [6] She loved the car so much, she had one designed especially for her. She renamed the basics "booby traps and bacon savers" ( bras and tights ), which appealed to her young customers. [7] In addition to the miniskirt, Mary Quant is often credited with inventing the coloured and patterned tights ( pantyhose ) that often went with the miniskirt. These are also attributed to Cristobal Balenciaga or John Bates. [5] Tights worn over briefs or bikini panties were an essential accessory to the miniskirt, because the older method of stockings plus suspenders was no longer suitable, and legs need to be covered for most of the year in Britain . Often there would be a second pair of coloured short pants on top of the tights, for show. A range of materials and colours were used for the tights.

Later career In the late 1960s, Quant popularised hot pants . Through the 1970s and 1980s she concentrated on household goods and make-up , rather than just her clothing lines. At a talk at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2007 she claimed to have invented duvet covers. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers, and winner of the Minerva Medal, the Society's highest award. In 1963 Quant was the first winner of the 'Dress of the Year' award. In 2000 she resigned as director of Mary Quant Ltd., her cosmetics company, after a Japanese buy-out. There are over 200 Mary Quant Colour shops in Japan, where Quant fashions continue to enjoy popularity. References ↑ Mary Quant in Voguepedia. [1] ↑ The Woman of the Year is a British Award, founded in 1955; it is now sponsored by Barclays Bank . [2] ↑ Mods and Rockers : The Mod movement was antithetical to (opposite, against) the Rocker movement.

The Mods and Rockers were two conflicting British youth subcultures of the early-mid 1960s... The rockers adopted a macho biker gang image, wearing clothes such as black leather jackets. The mods adopted a pose of scooter-driving sophistication, wearing suits and other cleancut outfits. Vintage Fashion Guild : Fashion History : The British Boutique Movement The British Boutique Movement | by admin | Fashion History | Trends & Genres British Boutique movement of the 1960s and 1970s. My name is Liz, a.k.a Emmapeelpants, and I will try to introduce you all to the vibrant design movement as much as I can. Obviously it is an enormous subject, so I have chosen some select designers and boutiques to concentrate on. The emergence of youthful and ambitious British designers in the 1960s was a revolution in the fashion world. Quite apart from the front-runners enabling lots of other young designers to feel that they too could start their own boutique, it forced the other fashion capitals to change their outlook and methods. So radical was the new look of the era, Britain became the focus of the world, and thus its leader.

For once, New York, Paris and Milan were looking to quirky old England for inspiration. British designers headed out on PR tours of America, pushing the Swinging London lifestyle and expanding their empires. It would end, in the great scheme of things, almost as suddenly as it began. Failing economy in Britain in the 1970s increased overheads and reduced sales for these designers, and as the other fashion capitals of the world fell out of love with the London look, most British designers floundered. I will try to give you a flavour of the designers involved and, within their stories, the eventual decline. British Boutique Movement: burning brief and bright. To start, I have put the designers and labels I know of into a tier system, which make it easier to digest and remember all the major and minor players in the vibrant British fashion scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Top Tier The Haute Couturiers with the British flavour. They are associated with the era more through the timing of their emergence, their popularity during that time and their collectability now.

Bill Gibb, Thea Porter, Zandra Rhodes, Jean Muir Second Tier The REAL stars of the period: the movers, shakers and talented kids who exploded onto the scene with a very British couture. A lot of them were the product of a strong art school scene in the late 1950s/early 1960s; Quant, Foale and Tuffin, Wainwright, Ossie and Gerald McCann are amongst this group. John Bates, Ossie Clark, Janice Wainwright, Foale and Tuffin, Mary Quant, Gerald McCann, Gina Fratini, Alice Pollock, Jeff Banks, Christopher McDonnell Third Tier The true boutiques of the movement. A new kind of department store, stocked with cheap, throwaway trendy gear and with a strong concept. The true predecessors of modern, young High Street stores like Topshop and Miss Selfridge: who both sprung up in the mid-late 70s, coinciding with the demise of Biba and Bus Stop.

Biba, Bus Stop, Clobber, Annacat, John Stephen (in all his incarnations; Lord John, Lady Jane etc), Granny Takes a Trip, The Apple Boutique, Quorum, Top Gear, The Fulham Road Clothes Shop, Pussy Galore, Miss Mouse, I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet. Fourth Tier The celebrity boutique. This phenomenon was started by TV presenter and ‘Queen of the Mods’ Cathy McGowan in the mid 1960s, continued with Twiggy and chanteuse (and Jeff Banks’ wife) Sandie Shaw in the late 60s. Cashing in on the popularity of said starlet, these were unlikely to have been designed by them, despite what publicity material of the time might say, being more a clever marketing ploy by manufacturers. Honourable mention also goes to Lulu. Fifth Tier Nationwide; boutiques sprang up across the country like Pollyanna, The Birdcage and AnnaBelinda of Oxford. Inspired by their London counterparts, they would sell their own designs and select pieces by the big name London designers. Sixth Tier What I would describe as the commercialisation of the movement.

Designers and ‘boutiques’ one knows little about these days, often a cloak for established clothing manufacturers wanting to project the boutique image. I would tentatively place Samuel Sherman in this tier because, despite the youthful image of his Dollyrockers brand, the sheer number of seemingly separate labels with his name attached might suggest he was simply a canny businessman. John Stephen (see above tier) had a similar ‘finger-in-all-the-pies’ syndrome, but he really was the KING of Carnaby Street and his influence on fashion and the business of High Street fashion is undeniable. Also the prevalent ‘QUAD’, ‘Mr Darren’, ‘Origin’ and ‘Polly Peck by Sybil Zelker’ would seem to be at the bottom of the pile in terms of price, quality and the lack of designer profile (or even existence in some cases) demonstrated in higher tiers. It has to be said though, that they did produce some mighty fine clothes which still make great alternatives to the ‘big’ names, just as they did back then!!

Quad, Mr Darren, Dollyrockers, Polly Peck/Miss Polly, Origin Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves: The Emergence of the Young Businesswomen The 1960s were a time of change for women in all spheres of work. The British Boutique Movement was spearheaded by a collection of young, talented and ambitious young women, eager to cater to their contemporaries in a way that fashion had failed to do for them. The most famous of these young women is Mary Quant. She was trained in Illustration at Goldsmiths’ College and worked at a milliner’s, stitching hats for wealthy ladies. It was this awareness of the discrepencies between fashions for the privileged and for ordinary young working women which inspired her. The origins of the revolution in the 1960s lay in the Teddy Boys and Beatniks of the 1950s, who were disillusioned by post-war Britain and thus subversive in their clothes and lifestyles. Mary Quant opened her first boutique ‘Bazaar’ on the King’s Road with her boyfriend Alexander Plunkett-Green and Archie McNair in 1955, clearly a part of this new way of thinking.

She initially bought clothes in to sell, but was typically frustrated with what was available to her. So she set about creating her own, in a somewhat haphazard manner which never seemed to meet the level of demand from customers. Creating unique clothes was simply not enough for her, she went several steps further to create a unique boutique through which to sell them. They would use completely outrageous novelties to keep the shop a controversial talking point in the heart of Chelsea, one of London’s most expensive and fashionable areas. The shop window was re-styled practically every week, exhibiting new designs and taking window design to new levels with extraordinary themes and accessories. Her earliest designs don’t seem all that radical when viewed through modern eyes, they have a more beatnik quality. Skirts were shorter than they had been, but the mini was a few years off being her trademark. The notable difference in her clothes though was the naivety; simple fabrics, simple straight cut shapes or sportswear influences. The cranberry and black striped dress from my own collection is one of the earliest pieces I have seen and is exhibited in the window display above. It is very early and despite the full skirt and frilled neckline, actually demonstrates the new simplicity she was bringing.

It didn’t require a petticoat, the fabric is a very heavy, dark, naïvely striped cotton and the frills are almost childish rather than sophisticated. The dress on the right shows much of her inspiration came from the clean lines and boyish cuts of the 1920s, and would eventually influence her work in a more subtle way. She cottoned onto the zeitgeist; youth. Women were young, women wanted to look younger, women now had the spending power to buy such clothes. They didn’t want the fussy, pastel concoctions of their mother’s wardrobe, so the dramatic move towards simplicity and ‘kooky’ colours began… In 1963 she started the ‘Ginger Group’ label, which was the affordable branch of her empire. Although her main clothing lines was essentially ‘affordable’ to working women, she knew she could capture the younger market with a cheaper, more youth-orientated label. The Ginger Group was launched with much fanfare and celebrity endorsement: The highlight of her design career and her most prolific period, was the period from around 1963-1967.

She went to America several times, launching The Ginger Group there and designing for collaborations with several manufacturers including Youthquake (c.1965) and JC Penneys (from 1963). She had a natural ability to promote herself, combined with the sharp business mind of her now husband, Alexander Plunkett-Green. It was during this period we get the definitive ‘Quant look’, with her use of op-art, mini skirts and PVC. It’s safe to say that nearly every designer around was designing along the same lines, but the cult of Mary Quant was dominant, her range of make-up, shoes, tights and underwear helping to keep her in the customer’s eye all the time. She was even awarded an OBE in 1966, collecting the gong in a mini dress! There is also the question of the continually disputed title of ‘Inventor of the Mini’, which is frequently attributed to Quant. Whether it be Quant, Courreges or John Bates who actually got it out first, the truth is that all three designers were not ‘inventing’ anything – merely realising the potential of the street fashion for raising hemlines.

However, Quant was absolutely the Queen of the mini-skirt, using her inimitable capacity for self-publicity to style herself as the spearhead for this revolution. It was a natural progression from her early designs, moving from the youthful into the practically baby-ish minis of 1966-1967. “There was a time when every girl under twenty yearned to look like an experienced, sophisticated thirty…All this is in reverse with a vengeance now. Suddenly every girl with a hope of getting away with it is aiming not only to look under voting age but under the age of consent.’‘ Quant on Quant, 1966. As you can see above, the look had softened by this time – with the emphasis on femininity with frills and floral prints. The late 60s spelled the end of Quant-mania. British fashion was evolving from the signature Quant look into a softer, more romantic look with the emergence of Ossie Clark and boutique ‘Biba’. It is perhaps appropriate that the woman who defined the 1960s, was unable to adapt enough to move as successfully into the 1970s.

The Ginger Group was still active, and the pieces from this time are very cute and frilly – but she was no longer a fashion leader, clearly influenced by Biba and Jean Muir (see below). Quant was now that bit older, married and less appealing to the next generation of young shoppers. She also mimicked French designers like Cardin by licensing her name out to all areas of design (homewares, the continuing reliance on make-up, umbrellas, ponchos, beachwear etc). Her ability to license herself benefitted her financially, no doubt, and for a while the US market was still mad on Quant. However, it inevitably meant that she was no longer considered relevant as a designer because she hadn’t concentrated on evolving her style. She’s been designing ever since this time, but it is our fascination with the image the name ‘Quant’ evokes and her own over-reliance on this which has kept her firmly in the past as far as fashion goes. Foale and Tuffin Quant wasn’t the only talented and strong female personality breaking through in the early 1960s.

Foale and Tuffin were the true spearheads of the new female design revolution, completely self-reliant in their business where Mary Quant, Barbara Hulanick and Lee Bender were all supported by husbands and male business partners. Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin were graduates from the Royal College of Art in 1961. In 1960, Mary Quant’s partner Alexander Plunkett-Greene gave an inspirational talk at the RCA about the set-up of ‘Bazaar’. The set pattern for graduating students was to get a job at a manufacturing firm, but Tuffin and Foale rejected this route to set up in business on their own, thus changing the outlook of later students (who included Ossie Clark). Marion Foale had been taught pattern-cutting and dressmaking at home, and refined these skills at the RCA – ensuring that she knew exactly how to create the designs she made. When they graduated in 1961, they rented studio space on Carnaby Street (before the revolution which made it a centre for London fashion).

Two young women setting up on their own caused raised eyebrows from all quarters and Foale recalls “the hilarious response from wholesalers at two ‘kooky’ girls trying to source fabric and suppliers. We initially bought fabrics from Dickins and Jones and then realized that ‘wholesale’ existed.” Completely self-sufficient, they made their own patterns and cut their first samples themselves, before opening up a shop in Marlborough Court (off Carnaby Street) in 1962. They shunned Paris fashion, concentrating on creating wearable and fun clothes for young women like themselves. “ We suddenly didn’t want to be chic; we just wanted to be ridiculous.” Around the same time, they discovered a love of lace – which inspired a collection of little lace dresses which were bought by the Woolands 21 shop (which, at this time, was a showcase boutique for many of the up-and-coming new London designers). By 1963, Foale and Tuffin were firmly established in their own business and had fulfilled their ambition of achieving this without the help of a man.

They were a mainstay of mid-60s Vogue, their tailoring proving extremely popular and bold use of fabric and colour catering to the kooky young girls of London. In 1963, the US firm JC Penney had brought Mary Quant on board for a series of collections – masterminded by European buyer Paul Young. Fascinated by the kooky styles emerging in London, he felt that the connection would bring new buyers to the stores – translating the new ‘accessible’ clothes to US audiences. Young moved to the ‘Puritan Fashion Corporation’, and was briefed to position them at the forefront of the youth fashion market. He created the ‘Youthquake’ label for them, and asked several young British designers to design for them. These included Foale and Tuffin. A heavy promotional tour was organised, bringing with it the new trend for vibrant, dancing fashion shows which captivated the Americans. However, the venture was initially unsuccessful. The manufacturers cut corners, used poor quality fabrics and the clothes were quite badly made. The department stores also didn’t know what to do with the collections, as they were divided into sections for different ages and no one was quite sure where to put these quirky, ‘teen’ clothes.

Young realised that the department store system would simply not work, and created specialist shop ‘Paraphernalia’ which stocked Quant, Foale & Tuffin, Ossie Clark and Emmanuelle Khan. Moving into the later years of the 1960s, Foale and Tuffin continued to produce incredibly tailored outfits – this being something of a trademark for them at the time. It was still young and fun, but with a sophistication which belied their youth and outlook. They were so highly regarded they were even chosen to create costumes for Susannah York in Kaleidoscope (1966) and Audrey Hepburn in Two For The Road (1967) They were also becoming famous for using extraordinary fabrics, many by famed textile designer Bernard Neville, which they regularly used in some quite insane, some simply romantic and always fun outfits! In the early 1970s, both women had got married and started families which meant their interest in fashion diminished somewhat. In 1972 they decided, very amicably, to dissolve the partnership and move on to new things. Sally Tuffin is now a highly regarded ceramics designer at Moorcroft and Marion Foale continues to design knitwear.

Despite their prolific output throughout the 1960s, their clothes are as rare as hen’s teeth and they remain one of the glaring omissions in my collection. Foale and Tuffin truly represented the new position women held in fashion through the boutique movement. They managed to succeed on their own terms, without the assistance of any men and inspired countless other young women to do the same. It’s a woman’s world: Men designing women In an era of feminism, and where female designers radically altered the face of fashion, what about the men? A new type of male designer appeared in the 1960s, less domineering and starchy than their predecessors (like Hartnell, Amies, Steibel, Cavanagh and Morton). They were designing FOR women, catering to tastes newly set by the likes of Quant and Foale and Tuffin. That is not to say that they were mimicking their female counterparts, merely sharing their market. Young buyers were respected for their new disposable income; no longer supported by husbands and lovers, they had jobs and an unquenchable desire to look young and radical. Fashion had known nothing like it, and the male designers took this to extremes.

John Bates Well I had to do it. Possibly one of my favourite designers of the period, John Bates was radical and uncompromising with his designs. He embraced the new youth movement with a similarly opinionated approach to design that the ‘old-school’ designers had in the earlier part of the century. “I hate girls not making an effort, and with a slovenly attitude to their appearances. I often see super girls who are very nearly smashing, but not quite there, simply through lack of effort.” Adding hastily, “Of course this applies just as much to men!” Designs on Men. 19 Magazine. April 1969 However, unlike them, he was fascinated with this dominance of youth, confidence and the entirely new fashionable figure. Since his career continued until the end of the 1970s, I have decided to concentrate on his earlier work which is most representative of his contribution to the Boutique movement. The true background to his association with the ‘Jean Varon’ name is fuzzy, depending on where you read about it. Bates himself claims he was invited to start the label and that he came up with the name himself, whereas other sources claim he was invited to be sole designer for the existing Jean Varon firm.

He had no formal training in fashion, having worked in journalism and, allegedly, as a window dresser for Mary Quant’s Bazaar boutique. He trained at Herbert Sidon of London in the late 50s and started at Varon in the early 60s, possibly 1960 (again, depending on the source you read). After early attempts at radical design were thwarted by what large department stores (such as Fenwicks) required for their rather old-fashioned clientele, Bates eventually hit his stride as a designer in around 1964, catching the attention of British Vogue (who were always eager to find the ‘next big thing’). The increasing popularity of Mary Quant, Foale and Tuffin et al enabled Bates to break the somewhat ‘staid’ mould he had been forced into. He took the gradually rising hemlines and raised them higher. He took the new, more boyish lines and made them straighter. He took bizarre and often unworkable textiles, experimenting with how he could use them. He was also amongst the first designers to use the emerging op-art textiles in his work. Jean Shrimpton appears to have been the natural model for his work at this time.

When there was no more leg to be revealed, he started removing fabric from the midriff – creating the cut-out effect, filled with transparent or loose-weave fabrics. He was the first designer to really see the external potential of underwear; there really is a very fine line between your average 60s undies and some Bates outfits! Also radical in his choice of fabric, Bates was amongst the first to experiment with PVC and in this piece in my collection, a type of bacofoil!! The body of the dress is made from a textured synthetic which has such a stiff feel that, teamed with the foil trimmings, renders the dress almost entirely unwearable. I’m sure it WAS meant to be worn, but these early pieces were very heavily stylised. His designs for Emma Peel in Season 4 of The Avengers, demonstrated a youthful arrogance and determination. It had been a commonly held belief that Television could not cope with bold patterns and shapes, but Bates designed a large number of costumes with lines, circles and stripes in a demonstration of his skill as a designer.

They worked and were such a departure from the clothes commonly seen on Television that they were an instant hit, sold out in shops across the country and secured his fame and popularity as a designer. He also defiantly raised her hemlines, left no hem so they could not be lowered again and showed her midriff. All of this was designed before the mini had really ‘hit’ the country, and was broadcast at the same time it did hit. He also created controversy by eliminating the ‘leather’ element of the Cathy Gale and earliest Emma Peel episodes. He used PVC with stretch jersey, snakeskin and fur instead for a softer, more feminine look. Bates was also famed for his radical approach to accessorizing, which was demonstrated in his commissioning the beret (by Kangol), gloves (by Dents), tights and shoes (by Edward Rayne) which were integral to the Emma Peel wardrobe. He wanted control over the entire look, designing hats and tights to be manufactured by others for the sole purpose of matching his clothing designs. Aside from these radical and totally innovative pieces which became his trademark, Bates was also famed for his feminine designs – something some lesser male designer might have forgotten in the pursuit of total innovation and attention seeking.

His designs were unashamedly attention seeking, but retained the femininity which kept his customers coming back for more. His signature designs included lacey babydoll mini dresses and empire line maxis in a wide range of colours and patterns. Bates had a design career longer than many of his contemporaries. Financially backed as designer for Jean Varon, he had a certain degree of freedom to adapt to market forces. The 1970s saw the fall of many designers who couldn’t keep up with the changing needs of their now older customers. Things were coming full circle back to a more conservative mainstream fashion, and the street look was back under the control of people on the streets. Punk arrived in the mid 70s, leaving many designers out in the cold by both the establishment and the young people. Bates somehow navigated his way through this with designs aimed at an older, more conservative audience However, it was his determination to have his own-name label which eventually edged him out of the industry. ‘John Bates’ clothes were more ‘couture’, more expensive and more in the vein of his contemporaries like Bill Gibb, Zandra Rhodes et al whose expensive and elegant designs were what the Vogue editors now looked for.

The label wasn’t an enormous financial success though and (according to some biographies I’ve read) bankrupted him, ‘Jean Varon’ was no longer fashionable and Bates decided to leave the industry before he could get sucked into the rag trade – anonymously designing for manufacturers. Less content to adapt to market forces was designer Ossie Clark. Used to getting his own way, and with absolutely no head for business, he was hit hardest by the changing face of fashion in the mid 70s. For ten years, he was the darling of British Fashion – feted worldwide and allowed a fairly free hand over his designing. The late 70s brought with it a long period in the fashion wilderness for Ossie, his curvaceous, form-fitting and romantic designs didn’t adapt well to the conservative direction Vogue was taking – nor to the recycled, torn and harsh Punk-look. Ossie Clark Ossie is not a designer you would associate with the word ‘radical’, but there was something quite deliciously so about his emergence as a designer in the 1960s.

Training at The Royal Academy and something of a prodigy in his time there, Ossie’s first pieces to feature in Vogue in 1965 were undeniably youthful, brilliantly well cut and more form fitting than his contemporaries. His talent was spotted immediately, and he was taken on by designer Alice Pollock to design for her newly established boutique ‘Quorum’. However, there is almost something derivative about his use of op-art prints, simple shapes and mini dresses. These were being produced by most designers by this point and you certainly don’t feel that Ossie had quite hit his creative stride yet. Whether it was the Ossie influence, or simply the influence of the changing youth scene in the late 1960s it is hard to know, but his late 1960s designs began to really change perceptions about clothes for women. Ossie adored the female form; breasts, waists, bottoms and all. The radically ‘straight’ look of the mid 1960s dollybird wasn’t appealing to Ossie in the same way it was for other designers. ‘I found the mini skirt restrictive.

With the bias cut you could end up with the most extraordinary patterns.’ Ossie Clark Whereas Bates’ response to the dead end street of the mini skirt was to cut out from elsewhere to the point where there was barely any fabric left, Ossie’s response was to lower the hemline again so that he could manipulate it from that point. Inspired by the fluid, body conscious designs of Vionnet in the 1930s, he experimented with more fluid fabrics like satin, chiffon and his trademark moss crepe. These early designs are a real signpost to where he was headed. Ruffles, ties and buttons appeared (he couldn’t stand zips and did anything he could to avoid using them) and the whole look softened. His muse was his wife Celia; petite, curvy and ultra-feminine. She was also providing textiles for him, which in turn inspired new designs to accommodate them. So important was Celia to Ossie, that he cited her textiles as the main reason behind his success and jealously refused to let anyone else use her designs.

The only designer who ever DID, was their friend Janice Wainwright who used a few Celia textiles in the late 60s for Simon Massey, before Ossie then demanded complete exclusivity. More so than any other designer, he designed for what women wanted. The appeal of the androgynous mid 60s silhouette was wearing off and the slinky, sexy and un ashamedly glamourous Ossie silhouette began to dominate. He, Celia and one of his favourite designs were immortalised in popular culture through Hockney’s portrait of them (itself inspired by Jan van Eyck: The Arnolfini Portrait and Mr. and Mrs. Andrews by Gainsborough) In his enforced creative partnership with the company Radley from 1969 (Quorum was in pretty bad shape financially, despite its critical success and Al Radley bought the company), he also increased his output and dominance of the market. The earliest designs differ little from the ‘couture’ pieces, save for the insertion of zips and some slight modifications by Radley designer Rosie Bradford. Over a relatively brief period of time, the quality of the Ossie for Radley output diminished.

They seemed to frequently rely on ‘old favourites’, and the pulling power of a dress having a Celia print. Below right is one of the staples of the Radley output, a typical Ossie cut with the requisite buttoned front, enormous sleeves and rounded collar Far from being a one-trick pony though, in his own label work he continued to carve his reputation as a master tailor. As I have mentioned before, several designers were hit quite hard by the failing economy and the advent of punk in the mid-late 1970s. Ossie had always been stubborn, and a poor businessman. Without Alice Pollock to prop him up, he was unable to cope in the changing industry. He and Celia were divorced in the mid 70s too, which left him without one of his main inspirations. The relationship with Radley/Quorum ended in the late 70s, and designs from this period show a certain lack of clear direction. He spent the later part of his career teaching young designers like Bella Freud. Tragically, he was murdered by his boyfriend in 1996, and never really got to see the resurgence in popularity of his designs.

The Boutiques – The Namesakes of the Movement Annacat Formed in 1965 by friends Jane Lyle and Maggie Keswick, Annacat was the Biba of The Brompton Road. Although little is known about the origins of the boutique, it is easy to show the sense of fun and youthful enthusiasm which encapsulates the Boutique Movement through the designs of Annacat. They were highly favoured by British Vogue (something which Biba and Mary Quant struggled with throughout the 1960s, despite their fame and obvious charms), and the two female designers would appear to have been very ‘in’ with the London scene at the time – which might explain their favoured status. There is a real sense of fun and decadence about their pieces, regularly trimmed in ostrich feathers, printed in feminine, swirling psychedelics and with historically influenced, sexy shapes. I have often regarded Annacat as the truly girly version of Foale and Tuffin. Party girls, party clothes and (judging by some comments I’ve read online by those who went there) a real party atmosphere in the boutique itself. Annacat founder Janet Lyle with Patrick Lichfield in Vogue, September 1968.

Janet Lyle wears her own sea green velvet dress, Patrick Lichfield his own yellow shantung shirt. Both destined for New York where Annacat has opened a boutique at 924 Madison Avenue. Janet Lyle’s dress is full length, with small bodice, cascading white lace sleeves sewn with green satin ribbons. Patrick Lichfield’s shirt, with ruffles and a detatchable sash to tie in a large floppy bow, is from his first collection of men’s shirts which will be sold in a special boutique inside the New York Annacat. Happily, they are both available at the London Annacat, too, £33, and 15 gns to order, from 270 Brompton Road, SW3. Annacat clothes were decadent, wild and a tad impractical – in my time, I don’t think I have ever seen any Annacat daywear!! One of their signature looks was feather trims, as shown in this photo from Vogue, They even managed to give some glitz to dungarees!

When the girls weren’t adding sequins and feathers to things, their own take on the pseudo-historical trend was unashamedly, girlishly romantic. As you can see on the top picture of Janet Lyle, they were fond of velvets, period bodice styles and Liberty prints. The shop also stocked concessions by other designers (such as Patrick Lichfield, above), amongst the Lyle and Keswick pieces. Apparently, the boutique was the first London outlet for Laura Ashley in the late 1960s – before her own shop opened on the Fulham Road. Annacat was sold wholesale in 1970, presumably there weren’t enough customers clamouring for sequin trimmed dungarees(!), and failed to continue with the critical success of the early years with a different designer at the helm. From being a seemingly permanent fixture in Vogue throughout the late 1960s, I haven’t seen anything of them in my 1970s editions. Perhaps proving that the main reason they were so successful in the first place had been the personality of the two young party girls who started it! The boutique aspect of the movement had started to dwindle at this point.

Despite the optimism behind the expansion of Biba into the Derry and Toms building in High Street Kensington, most boutiques were struggling to cover overheads – perhaps the sheer number of inexperienced youngsters running their own businesses was always doomed to fail as Britain moved into the 1970s: a time of unemployment, strikes and precariously unstable economy. The aforementioned ‘Biba’ was perhaps the poster child of the boom and bust of the Boutique phenomenon. BIBA Biba truly revolutionised the Boutique as a concept. Opening in 1964 on Abingdon Road, Kensington by Barbara Hulanicki and her husband Steven Fitz-Simon, Biba was aimed at young women, with moderate disposable income who would have felt somewhat disenchanted with the prices at Bazaar, Foale & Tuffin et al. Despite the fact those shops and designers had started with the best of intentions to design for their contemporaries and make it affordable, sadly the prices were still slightly out of range for the average teenager and young women with modest salaries. The clothes were never intended to be in fashion for very long, and the girls naturally wanted new outfits to wear each Saturday night.

The first shop was an old chemists, and Barbara thrived on the dark and mysterious interior of this slightly dilapidated old building – seizing on the potential to do something vastly different to the bright and open feel of ‘Bazaar’. It inspired the interior design of the three subsequent premises Biba would occupy. The second Biba shop on Kensington Church Street The clothes were cheap, they were (initially at any rate) bright and VERY young. By the time they had move to new premises at Kensington Church Street in 1966, they were attracting a wide range of clientele – from schoolgirls to pop stars. Cathy McGowan was regularly seen in Biba on TV show ‘Ready, Steady, Go’, which gave them a huge new audience of young women – all desperate to get the look. Other manufacturers were so desperate to get a piece of the action, they would buy Biba to copy. Hulanicki said: “We must have been the only designers who were copied at twice the price”. 1967 print Biba outfits In 1968, they started a mail order branch of their company.

This enabled them to offer their unique look to girls across the country – and democratized the boutique movement even more, you didn’t have to live in London to buy Biba! Left: Biba mail order catalogue, late 1960s. Right: Black lace high neck blouse – illustrated in the catalogue – bottom right. In these catalogue illustrations, we see the physical ideal that Barbara Hulanicki designed for – somewhat in her own image. High, tight armholes for skinny arms, small breasts, long gangly legs, curly hair and a doll-like application of make-up – all smudgy eyes, rosy cheeks and rouged lips. The colours also gradually became more ‘sludgy’ and retro, Hulanicki said she had disliked the colours from her childhood, when older ladies would wear them, but when she applied them to her clothes, it put a whole new perspective on it. Left: Typical Biba colour palette. Middle: Late 1960s broderie anglaise mini dress.

Right: An archetypal Biba girl They were also famed for their prints, which quickly became more sophisticated and 20s/30s inspired than the prints shown above from 1967. Left: Print pieces from the catalogue, late 1960s. Right: Print jersey top and skirt ensemble. The top is low cut and tight fitting and the skirt has four splits which practically reveal all! Biba even managed to get into that other great British icon, Doctor Who. Assistant Jo Grant was conceived as something of a typical young woman of the time, and Katy Manning was definitely a typical Biba girl with her cute face, feathered blonde hair and tiny frame. The costume designer decided to regularly put her in Biba, which was later interestingly contrasted with assistant Sarah-Jane Smith who was regularly seen wearing Kensington High St. rivals ‘Bus Stop’! It was the late 1960s in which Biba thrived. The ‘Swinging London’ label was starting to look tired and the mood of the country was becoming far more ‘retro’, with a move towards the romance and decadence of the past.

Biba perfectly encapsulated this mood, along with the country-girl chic of Welsh designer Laura Ashley, and it cemented Hulanicki’s resolve to create a complete Biba emporium inspired by the department stores of the 1920s but with a very relaxed atmosphere. She, apparently, insisted that no shop assistant should ever say ‘can I help you madam’ or make any customer feel inferior, another example of the classless shopping Utopia she was creating. This ambition was truly realised when, in 1973, she was able to take over the old Derry and Toms building on Kensington High Street (just round the corner from where Biba had been). Vast amounts of money were invested in the interiors, creating one of the most decadent and ambitious shops ever to have existed. It was dark, lush, shiny and designed to be as little like a ‘shop’ as possible. They even had a restaurant at the top, where bands like the New York Dolls would come and play! The interiors of ‘Big Biba’ in 1973 They were selling the Biba lifestyle.

Food, make-up, homewares, children’s clothes, menswear….you name it, they sold it. Soap Flakes, Cheese….. With the new store, came another approach to design. In an era of Glam Rock, where everything was sparkly and big – Big Biba came up trumps with sequined sweaters, enormous platforms and shiny fabrics. Sequined Biba dress I recently sold on eBay. They also ran riot with the deco inspiration: Biba’s naughty Thirties look, 1974 Hulanicki had an uncompromising vision. Not one style she designed was made more than 500 times. She refused to have strip lighting in the store to eliminate the amount of shoplifting. She wasted piles of moss crepe if it happened to be in last season’s colours. Girls would buy each style in all the different colours available, queuing to get the latest batch. It was this throwaway mentality which makes the clothes so collectable today, they genuinely weren’t made to last. Unfortunately, cheap and cheerful did not go very well with opulent decor and waste. Biba was losing money all the time, and the economy was in a sharp downturn by 1975.

Big businesses were taking over the High Street, and there was simply no room for quaint little Biba. The store was closing, people came and scavenged from piles of clothes, make-up and feathers to take their own little piece of Biba. By the end, people were just walking out without paying – Biba had always been notoriously badly hit by shoplifters and they weren’t about to stop now. 1975 was probably the watershed for many of the boutiques and designers. The demise of Biba was felt by all, it had seemed so untouchable and the embodiment of the Boutique dream. Written by emmapeelpants 2005

Question: Which fashion designer founded the Kings Road clothes shop Bazaar in 1955?
Answer: MARY QUANT