‘City gents in bowler hats beat on our shop windows shouting “immoral!” and “disgusting!”’: The rise (and rise) of the mini skirt

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works .

In 1967, Country Life author Anne Price wrote that young people were wearing skirts so short that they could go ‘no farther up without turning into a blouse’. However, by 1981, she was singing the praises of Mary Quant, the miniskirt matriarch, for her ‘clever codes’ of ‘inexpensive separates in high fashion style’. Quant, she concluded, had ‘got it right again.’

Though the origin of the miniskirt is contested (French designer André Courrèges has a worthy claim), it is British designer Quant who carries most credit for raising hemlines, and eyebrows, during the Swinging Sixties — an era dominated by youth-culture.

(Image credit: Richard Freiman-Phelps/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Ima