These days when urban women go about dressed in revealing outfits and seldom attract a second look, it was the death of designer Mary Quant recently that reminded people of the time when wearing a mini skirt was a political statement.
By the middle of the 20th century, women’s fashions in the West may have shed the whale bone corsets, bloomers, layers of petticoats and moved beyond the age when the flash of a woman’s ankle was deemed immodest, but legs still needed to be covered with long skirts and stockings.
World War II and the resulting shortages of fabric may have tightened and shortened women’s dresses that used to be uncomfortably constricting in the Fifties. But, it was not until the 1960s that the hemline went above the knee, for which Quant has been given credit. Others may have created the mini skirt, but she popularized and commercialized it. She apparently named the short dresses ‘mini’ after her favourite car, the Mini Cooper. While conservatives gasped in shock and some countries banned the mini skirt from being worn in public (the reason being that they would invite rape), and women were forbidden from wearing minis to offices and some educational institutions, Quant is reported to have said that mini dresses were, like the car, “optimistic, exuberant, young, flirty.” The bright minis she stocked in her trendy London boutique, Bazaar, sold out as fast as they hit the racks.The straitlaced believed the minis were vulgar, people banged on the windows of the boutique and shouted that the dresses were obscene; designer Coco Chanel found them “just awful” and is quoted in the New York Times as having said: “Have they all gone mad?”
Lucy Martin and Sophie Laughton write in theboar.org, “Until the 1950s, girls dressed like children until they started dressing like their mothers. There was no experimenting with personal style or exploring their adolescent identities. The prescriptive route of fashion emulated the gender roles of the time – women should marry and be a good housewife, or get a respectable job in an appropriate profession like teaching or nursing. But then came the 1960s – an era of dynamic social change.The Age of Austerity was over, rationing finally ended, living standards were improving, and drab post-war Britain was finally beginning to see a bit of colour. Young women aged between 16-25 were entering the workforce in droves, and suddenly a brand-new social group began to emerge. With their large disposable income, these young women became the target market for a whole new type of fashion driven by none other than Mary Quant.”
Young women enthusiastically took to the trend, daring to bare their legs in a show of rebelliousness, and to use a ‘today’ word, empowerment, by cocking a snook at those who decided what they could or could not wear. Not to mention that the simple A line mini was more affordable than other styles, also more comfortable and convenient enough to move around unencumbered by yards of fabric and formal high heels. By then sexy was not a dirty word and sophistication could be interpreted in different ways. Pants were still frowned upon, but when forced to wear skirts, women decided just where the hemline would end.
Quant said she “didn’t have time for women’s lib,” but without really meaning to, the mini skirt became a symbol of women’s liberation. After the privations of the War, when the West was recovering, times had started to change, with many traditional norms being discarded on the way. It was the age of the loosening of sexual constraints with the introduction of the birth control pill, that gave women some control over their bodies and their lives. More and more women were going out of the home to work, and they obviously needed outfits that did not take too much time to put on. Skirts still remained below the knee, but it was only a matter of time for that to be altered.
As Valeria Ramos writes in themadameblue.com, “In the 1960s, the feminist movement was in full swing, and designers like Yves Saint Laurent, André Courrèges, and Mary Quant began sending models down their runways with shorter hemlines.This trend later picked up speed with the help of women like Twiggy and Gloria Steinem during the “swinging sixties,” when mini skirts, go-go boots, and mod fashion were all the rage.”
There was even a British Society for the Protection of Mini Skirts formed and when a 1966 Dior fashion show did not show trendy short dresses, there were protests outside the venue with mini skirted women holding up placards that read, “Mini skirts forever.”
In her piece for standard.co.uk Harriet Hall quotes Rebecca Arnold, professor of dress and textiles at the Courtauld Institute of Art, “It was a sign of a new attitude for those who wore it. It symbolised to those around them that times were changing and women were active and visible.”
If there was a flip side, it was that the ideal figure for the mini was thin, which resulted in an unhealthy dieting and weight loss culture, that continues to this day, because haute couture ditched the curvy body that was coveted by women in the past, to make way for the skinny and flat as a plank physique. There was also the somewhat valid argument back then that the mini sexualized women’s bodies— what would they say about body-con dresses or backless outfits with thigh-high slots and plunging necklines? Or the style of wearing inners as outerwear? Or sheer gowns?
Rachel Lubitz in mic.com writes, “Women like Gloria Steinem continued to hold on to the idea that the miniskirt was a transgressive act, wearing them to rallies and speeches, proving that you can be strong and wear feminine clothing at once. As Vanity Fair recalled of her dress from the era: “[a] miniskirt riding outrageously high over those spectacular racehorse legs, a glittering gold tunic that made her stand out instantly in a crowded room.” According to the Washington Post, she was the “the mini-skirted pinup girl of the intelligentsia”.”
The mini skirt led to the flouncy rah rah cheerleader skirt, micro minis going as high as a skirt could possibly go without merging with underwear, and the really tiny hot pants; the Seventies brought in loose, floaty dresses and bell bottoms, jeans gained popularity as well as denim skirts. As more women joined the corporate world, the power suit was created, that exuded authority and a I-mean-business vibe.
Fashions come and go, what the mini skirt did is convey the message that women could wear whatever they pleased, whatever made them feel comfortable and good about themselves. For that Mary Quant deserves thanks.
(This piece first appeared in The Free Press Journal dated April 21, 2023)
