MARY’S BOUTIQUE JUST BLEW ME AWAY

JILL KENNINGTON, 76, modelled for Mary Quant from 1962-1969. A top model, she starred in the 1966 cult film Blow-Up. She is married to Richard Courtauld, and has two grown-up daughters, a step-daughter and a grandson.

GROWING up on a farm in the country, I had this huge compulsion to go to London. Age 19, I arrived to live with an aunt who worked as a buyer at Harrods.

I got a job there, and one day I bowled out at lunchtime and saw this amazing boutique called Bazaar [Mary Quant’s shop]. It was vibrant, full of colour.

Back then, you couldn’t find clothes for teenagers — seeing Bazaar was like a light going on.

Before long, I met an agent, started as a model and just zoomed up. Norman Hartnell picked me as his mascot, then photographer John Cowan introduced me to Mary.

I modelled her mini skirts and did many pictures for her running and jumping. I remember buying a Mini for €500 and getting it spray-painted purple to match my favourite purple Quant outfit.

Her shows were totally different. Her girls were fresh and energetic rather than toffee-nosed. We had fun dancing to jazz or wandering among the tables of fashion editors and chatting to them, rather than a formal catwalk.

My adventure began with Mary, and later I worked with Helmut Newton and Richard Avedon. I went to the Arctic Circle and the desert with Vogue. And I filmed Blow Up, much of it shot in John Cowan’s studio.

In the Seventies I lived in Paris and Rome and continued globetrotting for such magazines as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.

Later, I bought a Nikon and started taking pictures myself. In the V&A exhibition there will be a lovely portrait of Mary which I took (see cover).

Sometimes I think: ‘Oh God, I’m quite old now.’ But the key is to stay curious. We’re the generation who learned to grasp life.