Marie Redding, Senior Editor04.13.23
Mary Quant died on April 13th, 2023, and the fashion industry is mourning a great loss—and so soon after paying tribute to another iconic British designer, Vivienne Westwood.
Quant's "Mod look" defined the "swinging 60s"—but many will also remember her impact on the beauty world—and in the end, some say Mary Quant Cosmetics was her most lucrative business.
Quant's style included colorful miniskirts, hotpants, colorful tights, shift dresses—and lots of PVC. The retrospective exhibition "Mary Quant at Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London from 2019 through 2020, with over 200 garments from Quant's personal archive. V&A posted a tribute on Instagram, saying, "Fashion today owes so much to her revolutionary and trailblazing vision."
Alexandra Shulman, former editor-in-chief of British Vogue, tweeted, "RIP Mary Quant. A leader of fashion but also in female entrepreneurship - a visionary who was much more than a great haircut."
Quant Turned a Fashion Label Into a Brand
Quant had the business sense to turn her fashion line into a lifestyle brand. She signed licensing agreements for tights, cosmetics, underwear, jewelry, home items, and more—reaching a mass market with SKUs at every price point.Looking back, Quant's journey began as a retailer when she opened a boutique named "Bazaar" in 1955 with her husband Alexander Plunket Greene, and friend Archie McNair, a lawyer and photographer, Harper's Bazaar reports. The shop was on trendy King's Road in London, had eye-catching window displays, and was one of the first to cater to young customers by selling affordable clothes in easy-to-wear shapes and vibrant colors.
Quant was inspired by the trendy girls walking by the shop in London's Chelsea neighborhood, and noticed how they were starting to dress differently. Fashion was changing, and she knew what her customer wanted to wear. When she couldn't find clothes in the styles she wanted to sell, she taught herself to sew.
Soon, Quant had her own fashion line—and sold miniskirts to the masses.
Quant quickly became the UK's most high-profile designer. She launched a lower-priced line for the mass market under the label Ginger Group. When she signed a licensing agreement with JC Penney in 1962, her trendsetting looks crossed the Atlantic to the US."I thought fashion ought to be for everybody," Quant said, according to Heather Tilbury Phillips, who was the director of Mary Quant Ltd. for 14 years. "It was always vibrant, exciting, and always looking for new ways of promoting Mary herself as the personality, and of course all the garments, the accessories, and other merchandise she was designing," Phillips said in a video interview posted by V&A Dundee.
Quant's Makeup is as Revolutionary as Her Clothing
Fashion was changing dramatically during the 60s, but not makeup. Quant wanted to reinvent both the colors and packaging, and she did. Mary Quant Cosmetics launched in 1966. In 1971, the cosmetics line launched in Japan.Beatrice Behlen, the senior curator at the Museum of London, wrote an essay in V&A's exhibition book, "Mary Quant." Behlen quotes Quant explaining why she started her cosmetics line, saying, "Now that the clothes were different, the face was wrong...there was no flexibility and no fun with makeup."
Behlen writes that the launch of Mary Quant Cosmetics on March 28th, 1966, was "a makeup revolution, an entirely new packaging concept," explaining that during the 1960s, most beauty products marketed to women looked similar—in pale pink and gold bottles.
Quant made a deal with Gala Cosmetics, part of the Myram Picker Group, to produce her brand. It took 18 months to develop. Behlen writes that Quant said, "...when the packaging and testing also went so smoothly and looked so terrific, it was the one time in my life I had total confidence in a venture's success."
Mary Quant Cosmetics included liquid eyeshadow, liquid eyeliner, lipstick in a compact with a brush, a lip shaper pencil, nail polish, and more. Mary Quant Crayons, a playful makeup set, is shown above. Quant's lipstick was in a brushed metal tube, explaining that she wanted "something you could pull out of your pocket or your bag without it looking like it belonged in a boudoir. I thought, why can't lipsticks look like a cigarette lighter?"
Quant Was One of the First To Understand Branding
Some of the ways Mary Quant marketed her brand—and her personal style—were brilliant. Beauty brands today are still taking cues from her playbook.Fortune reports that Hamish Bowles, international editor at large for American Vogue magazine, said Quant was one of the first to understand how branding oneself as a creative force could help her sustain her business and branch out into new fields, like cosmetics. “I think it was a happy confluence of events, which is really what fashion is so often all about. She was the right person with the right sensibility in the right place at the right time."
Mary Quant Cosmetics' team boarded a double-decker "Beauty Bus" for a promotional tour from 1970 through 1975. The bus was custom fitted with long makeup tables, mirrors, and stools. It toured Europe, Canada, America, and Venezuela, according to V&A.
Quant's beauty team had a point-of-sale leaflet that resembled a comic strip—filled with Quant's notes about using the new products. Printed on thin paper that folds into a small rectangle, it said "Face of Today" at the top. Near the bottom, it said, "And when the look changes, so will my cosmetics."
See the leaflet illustrations—and a photo of Mary Quant Crayons, from her beauty line—at V&A: The story of Mary Quant.
