Mary Quant exhibition comes to Glasgow for final stage of tour

She began designing in the 1950s, and her distinctive style began to blossom in an era of increased freedom with the birth of Swinging London. Her early boutique, Bazaar opened in 1955, sold out of the early dresses crafted in a bedsit.

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The designer was said to have encouraged a new age of feminism, inspiring young women to rebel against the traditional clothing worn by their mothers and grandmothers.

Now a major exhibition celebrating her work will open at Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in May.

Mary Quant exhibition enters final stage in Glasgow (Image: Newsquest)

Mary Quant: Fashion Revolutionary will run from May 20 to October 22 2023.

The V&A’s major retrospective of Dame Mary, one of Britain’s most iconic and celebrated fashion designers, will be shown at Kelvingrove after returning from an international tour. It is the first Scottish date since it opened at the V&A in Dundee in 2020 running for four months in the midst of the Covid pandemic.

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However, this will be the final chance to see the exhibition, which features over 100 garments, accessories, cosmetics and photographs drawn from the V&A’s extensive collections, Dame Mary Quant’s archive and, following a public appeal, many private collections.

Focusing on the years from 1955, when Dame Mary opened her experimental boutique Bazaar on the King’s Road, Chelsea, through the ‘Swinging Sixties’ when she was awarded her OBE, to 1975, it showcases the period when she revolutionised the high street with her subversive and playful designs for a younger generation.

Dame Mary said: "It was a wonderfully exciting time and despite the frenetic, hard work we had enormous fun. We didn’t necessarily realise that what we were creating was pioneering, we were simply too busy relishing all the opportunities and embracing the results before rushing on to the next challenge."

Next year will mark 60 years since the mini skirt was created.

The British designer previously recalled its "feeling of freedom and liberation" years after she took the fashion world by storm.

Dame Mary, who named the skirt after her favourite make of car, said she "couldn't have imagined" in 1964 that it would become a staple of women's clothing, but added: "It seemed then to be obvious, and so right.

"I had myself in mind when I designed it.

"I liked my skirts short because I wanted to run and catch the bus to get to work. It was that feeling of freedom and liberation."

She began experimenting with shorter hemlines in the late 1950s, culminating in the creation of the mini skirt in 1964 and one of the defining fashions of the decade.

She said: "It was the girls on (London's) King's Road who invented the mini. I was making clothes which would let you run and dance, and we would make them the length the customer wanted. "I wore them very short and the customers would say, 'shorter, shorter'."

Dame Mary said she still most liked to see the skirt worn "short and leggy", and revealed the names of those she thought had worn it best over the years.

"Jean Shrimpton, of course, was unbeatable, and also Audrey Hepburn. Both of those were hard to beat. But there were many others... Twiggy, Sandra Paul (now Sandra Howard, the former model and the wife of former Conservative Party leader Michael Howard), Grace Coddington (US Vogue creative director)."

And asked if she thought women were ever too old to wear a mini skirt, she said: "No, it depends on your legs. Nothing more, nothing less."

The exhibition will be held in the lower ground location which has played other to popular exhibitions since the museum reopened in 2006 following a major refurbishment.

In 2007, Kylie Minogue's glittering wardrobe was including her famous gold hot pants.

More than 200 objects were displayed, taken from the archives Minogue gave to the Arts Centre in Melbourne, her home town.

While in 2014 a decision of museum bosses to stage the first major retrospective by Scots artist Jack Vettriano there stunned the art world.

A total of 132,502 people attended the exhibition between 21 September 2013 and Sunday 23 February 2014.