A Short History of the Mini Skirt

It was in the revolutionary 60s when the mini skirt became the cultural icon we know today. It signified a political youth movement when teens no longer wanted to dress like their parents.

There have been many disputes as to who first made the shorter hemlines, but it was Mary Quant who pioneered 60s fashion in London. Born 11th February 1930 in Blackheath, London. Her parents were university professors. She studied illustration at Goldsmiths then apprenticed to an upmarket milliner in Mayfair. At 16 Alexander Plunkett Greene, grandson of Bertrand Russel and descendant of an aristocratic family, helped her to open her boutique ‘Bazaar’. Her iconic boutique ‘Bazaar’ on King’s Road London was opened in 1955, where her strong colours and simple shapes were born. Bazaar became the place to be, a hedonistic hangout of music, drinks and fashion, which appealed to the young. Short skirts and dresses were her signature look, making the mini popular on an international scale. The Quant definition of a mini required the bottom edge of the skirt to hit roughly halfway up the thigh and fall no more than 4” below the butt.

With the 60s came big breakthroughs that changed the course of history. The development of the birth control pill enabled women to indulge in their sexuality without the fear of falling pregnant. The mini skirt conveyed this newfound freedom.

Twiggy was the mini skirt movement’s figurehead. Her look of short hair, boyish figure, mega thick lashes and doe deer eyes were a huge contrast to the models of the previous decade. Her look was copied everywhere.

Quant wasn’t the only pioneer at the time. The French designer Andre Courreges began experimenting with hemlines in the early 60s. He began to show space-age dresses that were above the knee in late 1964. Quant famously said, “It wasn’t me or Courreges who invented the mini skirt anyway - it was the girls in the street who did it”.

And now we have the micro mini. Shorter and still as popular. It has a very different value from that of the past, but it still remains fashion’s most iconic statement of all time.