MORE than 35,000 people have visited a Glasgow exhibition dedicated to groundbreaking designer Dame Mary Quant.
The popular retrospective, Mary Quant: Fashion Revolutionary, will close on October 22, and organisers Glasgow Life are expecting thousands more to flock to Kelvingrove before then.
Featuring more than 100 garments, accessories, cosmetics and photographs drawn from the V&A’s extensive collections, the display also includes items from the designer’s own archive and many private collections.
Students on Glasgow Clyde College’s HND in Fashion Design and Manufacture joined Glasgow Life Museums’ learning and access curator Jen Keenan at Kelvingrove recently.
Bailie Annette Christie, chairperson of Glasgow Life, said: “Dame Mary Quant’s contribution to British fashion was trailblazing and the response to the show has been truly heartening.
“Visitors have shared their joy on reliving wonderful, sometimes forgotten, memories, often with younger members of their family who weren’t around at the time.
“The V&A’s exhibition has also introduced an entirely new generation to Mary Quant’s incredible influence and legacy.”
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Lecturer Anne Wilson said: “Mary Quant’s affordable designer fashion was instrumental in changing how people looked at the world. It allowed an entire generation to look good and feel great. Our students are taking inspiration from her enduring legacy as they strut their stuff on the catwalk of their own fashion journey.”
Heather Tilbury Phillips, former Director of Mary Quant Limited and advisor to the V&A on the exhibition, said: “What is impressive is that so many of today’s teenagers and young people have been overheard saying how much they would love to wear the clothes now.
“They seemed to us to be ground-breaking, even outrageous at the time, but they still have an enduring and contemporary appeal. More than a million visitors worldwide have already enjoyed Dame Mary Quant’s contribution to those memorable years of 1955 to 1975 and this colourful exhibition is such fun and a fitting tribute to her revolutionary life.”
Jenny Lister, fashion and textiles curator at the V&A, added: “It’s been great to see the appetite for the Mary Quant exhibition in Glasgow, and to hear that visitors have enjoyed looking back at Mary’s ground-breaking designs.
“This special opportunity, in the final weeks for the show, to spark the creativity and imagination of the fashion students from Glasgow Clyde College shows how her impact will carry on, inspiring designers of the future.”
Sections of the exhibition look at the shift from couture to mass market designer fashion with the launch of the Ginger Group; how she moved fashion forward by going back and embracing the textile industry at the very heart of British manufacturing; and the way Mary Quant ‘borrowed from the boys’ and manipulated menswear to challenge the conventional gender stereotypes of the day.
Famous for popularising super-high hem lines, the exhibition goes on to explore the story of the miniskirt, dressmaking patterns, make-up and accessories that all showcased the iconic daisy logo.
Among the objects are the pioneering ‘Wet Collection’ PVC rainwear which featured in an iconic edition of Vogue; a collection of Daisy dolls created in Scotland by Lanarkshire-based Model Toys; and the dress Quant wore when receiving her OBE in 1966.
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