If You Do One Thing…
Celebrate the work of ground-breaking designer Mary Quant in a kaleidoscope of colour at the reopening of Dundee’s V&A
Head to Dundee V&A for the new bold and fascinating
Mary Quant exhibition
SCOTLAND’S first design museum has reopened with an exciting exhibition on the pioneering work by designer Mary Quant. The most iconic designer of the 1960s, Mary Quant rocked the world with her mini-skirt revolution and made women’s clothes fun, irreverent and affordable.
V&A Dundee’s retrospective on the designer was due to launch in April, but was postponed due to Covid-19. Now the museum has triumphantly opened its doors with new social-distancing measures, and fashionlovers can tour the exhibition until January.
First shown at sister museum V&A South Kensington in London, the exhibition features many of Mary’s most iconic designs, including bright jersey shifts, groovy A-line dresses, wet-look PVC macs, miniskirts – including one made from jute – and vibrant, daisy-logoed makeup.
It also showcases designs which playfully subverted menswear – at a time when women were banned from wearing trousers in formal settings such as restaurants.
Step inside the vast exhibition space on the banks of the Tay and your senses will immediately be assailed by the treasure house’s transformation. Think bold, bright colours, wild patterns, compelling film footage and jazz music favoured by Mary.
The exhibition is at once fun, flirty, arrogant, aggressive, sexy and playful – a bit like Mary herself, back in the Swinging Sixties.
“The exhibition aims to capture the feel of 1950s and 60s London,” says Kirsty Hassard, curator at V&A Dundee.
“As people walk through the displays, they’ll get a strong sense of what it was like to go shopping in Mary’s Bazaar boutique in Chelsea.”
The Mary Quant exhibition is the first international retrospective on the fashion designer, born in 1930 in Blackheath, London.
It’s also the first major fashion exhibition at V&A Dundee, and explores the period from 1955 to 1975, the two decades in which her influence was at its peak.
“It demonstrates how even to this day, Mary influences how we shop and dress,” says Kirsty.
“Visitors will see many examples of her fashions, from dresses to cosmetics, underwear and even dolls.”
Archive footage, including films and interviews with Mary and her contemporaries, is another highlight.
The exhibition is split into two parts with the first introducing 1950s Chelsea and the beginnings of Mary’s first boutique, Bazaar, which opened on the King’s Road in the city in 1955.
The iconic Mary Quant look – short skirt, flat shoes, tights and cropped Vidal Sassoon haircut – was created in her own image and the exhibition explores how this found a ready market in London, using case studies of women who bought Mary’s styles for social occasions.
Mary’s models were showcased in extravagant and provocative window displays overlooking the King’s Road, which became a mini-skirt catwalk and drew photographers from across the globe.
“City gents in bowler hats beat on our shop window with their umbrellas shouting ‘immoral!’ and ‘disgusting!’ at the sight of our mini-skirts over the tights, but customers poured in to buy,” Mary recalled in 1966.
“The mini-skirt was a symbol of the growing confidence of the young of that time as they broke away from the rules and inhibitions of the post-war period.”
“Gents in bowler hats beat on ‘immoral!’” our window shouting
Mary had always been obsessed with clothes – as a child she even cut up bedspreads to make dresses. Her mother’s ruined linen bore fruit, however, and Mary had became a fashion sensation almost overnight. Of course, she had been working away behind the scenes for years, but her styles suddenly exploded in the UK fashion scene.
With utopian ideals of free love and liberation in full force, and women keen to forget the dreary years of rationing and prim and proper dressing, it seemed that Mary had tapped into a Zeitgeist moment.
Her sassy designs were a way for women to express their independence; she famously liked shorter hemlines because it made it easier to run for the bus, or head straight from work to dance at a club.
Hers weren’t clothes made to restrict the wearer, but to give them more freedom and movement and she often favoured a stretchy, wearable jersey material.
Quant was also ahead of the curve in terms of androgynous dressing, and increasingly experimented with masculine tailoring.
“Some of the dresses in the exhibition come from the V&A’S #Wewantquant social media campaign that asked people who owned original Quant designs to get in touch,” says Kirsty.
“So many people identified with her – they wanted to join her revolution – and bought her clothes, and it’s great to be able to showcase these now, in 2020.”
The second part of the exhibition looks at the Quant company’s diversification into other products including paper patterns, shoes, underwear, make-up and dolls.
“Mary was one of the first designers to make fashion accessible to a wider audience, when fashionable clothing had been mainly haute couture – expensive and rather elitist,” says Kirsty.
“As a result, London replaced Paris as the centre of fashion in the 1960s.
“She designed clothes that made people feel good and we hope the exhibition has that same feel-good effect on visitors.”
It also looks at how Mary revolutionised fashion shows. These had previously been orderly, structured affairs, with serious-faced models slinking down catwalks.
Mary turned this around, asking them to run, dance, hop and skip to a background of loud music – and people loved it.
She also made her styles accessible. The most affordable way for fans to wear Mary’s styles was to make it themselves – and she readily supplied the patterns.
Mary Quant sewing and knitting patterns were perfect for home dressmakers to copy and they were hugely popular; some patterns sold more than 70,000 copies.
“Many of the key objects in the exhibition perfectly capture Mary’s daring and far-reaching influence on the fashion world,” says Kirsty.
“A beige PVC raincoat from the Wet Collection – a similar one in red ended up on the cover of Vogue – shows Quant’s innovative use of materials.
“Her 1963 show in Paris was the first time a collection of PVC clothing had been presented.”
Ultimately, Mary disrupted the fashion establishment, connecting with an energised, youthful audience looking for something fresh and fun – which makes this a perfect exhibition to celebrate the V&A Dundee’s reopening.
“We’re delighted to be in a position where we can reopen with such an exciting, uplifting and colourful show for our visitors to immerse themselves in,” says Kirsty.
As well as being mesmerised by the exhibition, visitors will also be greeted by a large-scale installation with the message “Be open to the Joy you deserve.”
The installation was created by Scottish fashion designer Christopher Kane, who hopes it will bring a smile to everyone who sees it.
“We hope this mantra will be a positive affirmation,” he says, “and serve as a reminder to be open to the feeling of joy even in these challenging times.”
The message is echoed by the V&A staff, who are keen to encourage visitors of all ages and backgrounds.
“Designers and communities have adapted to the challenges of this year, creating innovative solutions, adapting public spaces, highlighting social inequalities, and protecting the wellbeing of individuals during lockdown,” says Kirsty.
“She designed clothes that made people feel that” good and we hope the exhibition does