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Mary Quant Speaks
By Godfrey Deeny
Feb 26, 2003/ FWD/ --- If there's one designer who has been a victim of the barbed compliment,
that imitation is the highest form of flattery, it's Mary Quant.
Yet, with New York's recent runways crammed with her style, the great British designer smiles
and chalks it up just another accolade in her remarkable career.
Were there a law guaranteeing royalties for "homages" or "references," this designer would
have made a bundle in the latest New York fashion season, where everyone from Marc Jacobs to
Tommy Hilfiger packed their collections with Quant's optimistic Mod looks.
"We were expecting it," she said in an interview just before the party in Henri Bendel to
launch her new cosmetics corner and her clothing and accessories on the second floor.
"There are times when I look in a magazine or newspaper and see somebody's collection, and
I can practically call out the name of one of my dresses. But in the end I think it's great
for me. It's such fun."
Ironically, Quant exploded onto the London scene at the height of the Swinging Sixties,
when Britain finally brushed aside the gray post war blues.
Now, her comeback is happening just when the threat of conflict looms once again.
However, the designer shrugs off the comparison.
"There's just something in the air. There's a mood that wants out. It's so optimistic and
exuberant. It says it's great to be a woman and life is marvelous. It's the mood we all want,"
she argues.
Quant moved cautiously through the big boutique Thursday night using a crutch, the consequence
of a slip on one of New York's sludgy sidewalks.
A scattering of applause greeted her entrance into Henri Bendel, where the store had a
display of her fashion along with three models wearing Quant minis, an item of clothing she
is often credited with inventing.
"I reckon Mary Quant can do $10,000 a week in beauty and the same in clothing and accessories.
There's a consumer that has always loved her colorful clothes and we couldn't be any happier
about the timing," explained Ed Burstell, Henri Bendel's vice president and general manager.
At an age, 69, when most designers have put down their sketch pads, Quant still oversees
all the creative aspects of her fashion house from her atelier just off London's King's Road,
the same place where Michelangelo Antonioni came for inspiration before shooting his classic
film "Blow Up."
"The Stones and The Beatles always used to come by my studio. They didn't go to the boutique.
They couldn't. The fans would go wild. And as for the girls in the shop, they'd just go,
oooooooohhhhhhh," Quant smiles imitating a faint young Englishwoman.
"There was an enormous revolution then that went through everything, fine art, pop, theater,
every kind of area. Everything changed. Suddenly photography seemed quite different and alive.
That was the big revolution. Since then things have evolved and been fine-tuned this way or
that, in subtle details. But that revolution was or became, well, modern life."
Asked what she wants to be remembered for, Quant smiles and responds, "Democratizing fashion,
kicking out the rules and bringing freedom."
"I adore fashion and I find that fashion designers all get on very well together. We say
'look out for so and so,'" she laughs, mentioning Jasper Conran and Anna Sui as two she
particularly admires.
"Fashion has been such fun. I've been very fortunate and have enjoyed it so hugely.
I've regrets, of course, but I put them out of my mind. I've dressed some great women,
Audrey Hepburn, Leslie Caron and Brigitte Bardot. And that Versace lady, em, Donatella,
she buys our nail polish and I am very flattered!"
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