Features
Get groovy with the swinging hepcats on the ICONS team as we spin some miniskirt songs, watch some miniskirt movies, and look at what clothes say about the state of our morals
Skirt Lengths and the Economy
Rising skirt lengths are a symbol of youth, playfulness and women's liberation – but are they also related to a nation's prosperity?
The Miniskirt and Women's Lib
The miniskirt was an emblem of rebellion for the young generation against the old. They were rejecting the beliefs and standards of their parents, as well as their fashions. This was not just a generational conflict, this was a particularly female revolution. And make no mistake, this IS a revolution - it is all about politics.
Mary Quant
After studying Illustration at Goldsmith’s College and then working for a milliner, Mary Quant opened Bazaar in 1955 on the King’s Road, one of the first London boutiques. It became the social centre for the so-called Chelsea Set, a bohemian crowd of trend-setters, writers and artists who became the staple of the gossip columns.
Clothing and Morality
Bill Scharf, head of the Society for the Preservation of the Miniskirt, an entirely serious pressure group set up in the 1960s, when it looked as though its future was under threat, was quoted as saying that the Society existed “for the good of mankind”. The wording is significant. One of the chief arguments against the miniskirt is that it turned women into objects for men to ogle at. Moral conservatives from all backgrounds could not contain their outrage at this new taboo-breaking look.
Swinging London
By common acclaim, London in the mid to late 1960s was the world capital of cool. Paris might have been the hotbed of radical political activism, San Francisco the world headquarters of the hippie movement, but London had it all.
Miniskirts in Film and Song
So quickly did the miniskirt become an integral part of the culture of Swinging London in the 1960s that it was visible in films of the period from a very early stage. Indeed, we might be forgiven for thinking that it made its debut rather earlier than it actually did, to judge by the number of miniskirted women there are in many of the old black-and-white social realist dramas and comedies.
The Fashion Industry
The UK fashion industry is these days considered to be one of our strongest export performers. Like pop music or the wine trade, it has established a high international profile, so much so that when British designers go off to head up Parisian fashion houses – as has John Galliano at Dior, or Alexander McQueen, who succeeded Galliano at Givenchy – nobody raises an eyebrow.
