I'm reading — with tears in my eyes — "Mary Quant, British Fashion Revolutionary, Dies at 93/Known as the mother of the miniskirt, clad in her signature play clothes and boots, with huge painted eyes, fake freckles and a bob, she epitomized London’s Swinging Sixties" (NYT).
Thank you, Mary Quant! Thanks for the great joy of the very best fashion — in my subjective experience — the most fun, the most relief from formality and stodginess.
And thanks to the NYT writer, Penelope Green, for coming up with "nipped waists and ship’s-prow chests" to express so concisely what felt great to rebel against.
Futurism was much cheekier then:
Futurism was much cheekier then:
“Why can’t people see what a machine is capable of doing itself instead of making it copy what the hand does?” Ms. Quant told The New York Times Magazine in 1967. “What we should do is take the chemicals and make the fabric direct; we ought to blow clothes the way people blow glass. It’s ridiculous that fabric should be cut up to make a flat thing to go ’round a round person.”
She added: “It’s ridiculous, in this age of machines to continue to make clothes by hand. The most extreme fashion should be very, very cheap. First, because only the young are daring enough to wear it; second, because the young look better in it; and third, because if it’s extreme enough, it shouldn’t last.”
How disappointing the fashion future turned out to be! Who knows what "blown" clothes she might have pictured when she said that in 1967? I can't even picture what I would have pictured if I'd read that back then, which, maybe, I did. But I can imagine how cool 2023 clothes would have felt and I'm pretty sad that nothing like that ever happened.
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I'm reading — with tears in my eyes
Aw. Nobody try to say fashion doesn’t matter…
I wish women these days wore more dresses. Yoga pants are less feminine despite everyone wearing them, but are an acceptable compromise depending on who's wearing them.
If she was the mother of the mini-skirt, then she was a hero. Well done!
Down with Oppression! Up with skirts!
Wal Mart fashion is not fashion?
Yesterday it was a 5'5" 250lb black girl in tight denim short shorts, accentuating her camel toe, with F cup breasts, in a see through bra, covered by a 2 sizes too small, white croptop, tee shirt exposing an ample bare belly.
I have never heard of Mary Quant, but she was forward looking. Blown-on dresses exist, at least one did:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/02/style/bella-hadid-coperni-paris-fashion-week.html
Not like blown glass, and probably pretty ephemeral,too.
How disappointing the fashion future turned out to be!
Right? Bras should have jetpacks by now.
Bring back corsets and Edwardian fashion.
#makebustleskirtsgreatagain.
In fashion, as in other human issues, if some is good, more is better.
Back in the day, it seemed the shorter the skirt the more likely to be wearing nylons. That's because, I presume, when you sat down, you weren't sitting on your dress, skirt, pants. And some of those classroom seats were cold. As was campus on a January morning.
Might have been the last cohort of women to wear nylons.
I recall our daughter, maybe thirty years ago, trying on one of my wife's college dresses--daughter was not as tall as mom at the time--and being scandalized.
Other than that more is better--shorter is better than just short--I couldn't figure out the benefit other than attracting unwanted attention from horny young guys.
I don't see my grandkids--reaching adolescence--or their friends as often as I used to. Weekends are full of tournaments--lax, volleyball, swimming, softball, basketball--or prepping for finals or something, so I don't know what kids are up to these days.
In fashion, as in other human issues, if some is good, more is better.
Back in the day, it seemed the shorter the skirt the more likely to be wearing nylons. That's because, I presume, when you sat down, you weren't sitting on your dress, skirt, pants. And some of those classroom seats were cold. As was campus on a January morning.
Might have been the last cohort of women to wear nylons.
I recall our daughter, maybe thirty years ago, trying on one of my wife's college dresses--daughter was not as tall as mom at the time--and being scandalized.
Other than that more is better--shorter is better than just short--I couldn't figure out the benefit other than attracting unwanted attention from horny young guys.
I don't see my grandkids--reaching adolescence--or their friends as often as I used to. Weekends are full of tournaments--lax, volleyball, swimming, softball, basketball--or prepping for finals or something, so I don't know what kids are up to these days.
"First, because only the young are daring enough to wear it; second, because the young look better in it ..."
Today, with so many 15 year old girls already well into "secretarial spread", I suspect that is no longer true.
Here's How Corsets Deformed The Skeletons Of Victorian Women
RideSpaceMountain said: "I wish women these days wore more dresses."
Alas, I would LOVE to be able to wear more dresses! When I had legs-for-miles, the fashion had passed the mini-skirt in favor of the "maxi." I did wear sundresses a lot in the eighties and nineties---my husband still gets a faraway look and a smile when he mentions his favorite one.
Now, in my early sixties, things are looking gnarly even below the knee, and women don't wear hose anymore so dresses don't seem like a viable alternative anymore. Sad.
"Futurism was much cheekier then:".
Yeah, I remember. We used to to think the future was a great idea.
The most extreme fashion should be very, very cheap. First, because only the young are daring enough to wear it; second, because the young look better in it; and third, because if it’s extreme enough, it shouldn’t last.
Relate this to the dog walker's story above. Rich people like spending money. They will even spend a lot of money on ephemera if it makes a big enough splash. And the most extreme creations aren't meant to be worn at all or by anyone. They're advertising for a designer's less radical work. Plus, if high fashion were cheap enough for everyone to wear, it wouldn't be fashionable.
The only problem with the mini skirt is that far to many of those who looked good in them when young don't see how they look when older and out of shape.
Skirt hems seem to rise and fall with the economy. They rose after WWI with the boom, only to lower again in the '30s and '40s, but then rose at the end of the post-war boom in the '60s, only to lower in the crap economy of the '70s and '80s, but zipped up again in the '90s. They've hovered in the long good economy, but will the fall under the current protracted decline?
While not blown like glass perhaps the dress sprayed onto the model at Paris Fashion Week last year is still close to her intent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvF28W5ND6Y
"Mary Quant... epitomized London's Swing Sixties"
She also lobotomized its denizens, so someone did. I'd hate to think the Boomers did what they have done to the world with intact brains.
I still miss some of my clothes from the 60's and I don't even wear dresses any more. I think the blown clothes were the knit dresses and shirts and may include the leggings people wear today. ONe of my beefs with the 70's were the ugly clothes.
Kinda sounds like "blown clothes" ?
https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-scoops/everything-you-need-to-know-about-technology-behind-bella-hadid-spray-on-dress-1235369219/
"nipped waists and ship’s-prow chests" - hard on the body but easy on the eyes.
Even so, minis were a thoughtful replacement.
"She was round in the counter and bluff in the bow,
To me, weigh, hey, blow the man down!
So I took in all sail and cried, "Way enough now."
Give me some time to blow the man down."
From smoothing imperfections with temporary appeal, to splaying and oozing liberal excess, to the pointed oddities of traffic-cone chests, to celebrating man-splaining simulating women, to two men and a womb, and young women socialized with the first choice and the "burden" of evidence aborted, cannibalized, sequestered, masked under a veil of privacy and psychiatric dysphoria. You've come a long way, baby.
And the waif fad, where women emulating young males were selected, encouraged with a fashion-forward ambition and collateral damage.
A pioneer of fast fashion eh? I'm afraid once the Ecoscolds get to work on Twitter, that's going to put poor Mary Quant into the same basket of deplorables as the descendants of slave owners.
Bottom surgery with penis envy, top mastectomy without cause, period realignment for an empathetic perception, psychiatric corruption with "benefits", and all's fair in lust and abortion for that toxic masculine experience.
The side effect being the most common male fetish of all time, the white panty upskirt.
The sad part is that older ladies won't have anything to do with it, mostly because they don't value the appearance of their legs. If they only knew...
The future isn't what it used to be.
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