Equal parts practical and daring: how Mary Quant created look for a new way of living

Swinging 60s icon brought a sense of female liberty to her designs

• Fashion designer Dame Mary Quant dies aged 93

Only the Beatles are more closely tied to the legend that is London’s swinging 60s than Mary Quant. If the Fab Four wrote the soundtrack, Quant designed the look.

Quant, who has died peacefully at home in Surrey aged 93, claimed to have invented the miniskirt. André Courrèges might have quibbledwith this, but there is no doubt that it was Quant’s vision of what the miniskirt stood for that made it not just a piece of clothing, but a symbol of a whole new way of living.

In Quant’s hands, the miniskirt – equal parts practical and daring – was shorthand for a new attitude. She always said that she named it after her beloved Mini Cooper. Wearing a miniskirt was her shortcut to life in the fast lane.