Mary Quant's Biography

She was educated at Goldsmiths' College of Art. In 1957 she married Alexander Plunket Greene, whom she had met at art school.

Together, the two of them with another friend started a shop in the King's Road, Chelsea, called "Bazaar". Underneath, they had a restaurant called "Alexander's".

In the 1960s she won a number of design awards and in 1966 Mary Quant was awarded the OBE.

Her designs proved particularly popular in the sixties, most notably Mary Quant designed the mini-skirt which became emblematic of the decade.

In 1966 she branched out by founding Mary Quant Cosmetics.

Mary Quant won the Hall of Fame Award, British Fashion Council in 1990.

In 1999 Mary Quant told the BBC World Service:

"I grew up wanting to design clothes. The whole thing hit me at a very early age. In fact, I'm still in disgrace for cutting up a bedspread when I was ill with measles, aged something like six or seven. I think it started for me in that I inherited my clothes, as a child, from a cousin. And I must have been a very self-conscious child. Because I thought they weren't me."

In the New Year's Honours list, annnounced in December 2022, Mary Quant, already a dame, was made a Companion of Honour.

She died on 13 April 2023, aged 93.