My parents thought it was far too short!

Jenny FenwiCk, 71, lives with her husband in west yorkshire. she donated a 1965 lace dress.

I spotted this dress on a shopping trip with friends in 1965, and it was love at first sight. My mother was a seamstress and until then she had made all my clothes.

I came from a small Nottinghamshire town and at weekends we would go to sheffield to shop at Wallis and the new top shop concession in the peter Robinson department store.

I still don’t know how to describe the colour — it’s somewhere between ochre and ginger — but, when I saw it, I knew it was for me. I used to wear it with my Mary Quant tights, which had daisies on them, and a pair of shiny patent bronze leather shoes, with chunky heels and a bow on the front.

My parents didn’t know what to think: I remember my father tearing his hair out at the short skirts of the day. When Mary Quant came on the scene, she changed fashion completely. It made you feel alive.