LIFE, LOVE & LIBERTY
In an empty, darkened gallery in the depths of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, a succession of stylish women are taking turns to sit on a high stool, speaking to camera. A journalist, a model, a beauty expert, and a customer, all from the epicentre of fashion’s 1960s revolution, are recording short films for the V&A’s sensational retrospective devoted to the designer Mary Quant. The quartet are united by their memories of the red-headed icon who popularised women’s trousers and tights, invented the skinny-rib sweater and the sack dress, and raised hemlines to audacious heights.
Listening to these fizzing, funny and often moving reminiscences feels like travelling in a Google Earth time machine, zooming in on the decade when Bazaar, Quant’s small shop in the heart of the bohemian King’s Road, formed the nexus of London’s ‘Swinging Chelsea’. Here is the distinguished writer
