Mary Quant

I always designed clothes from a very young age because I didn't like the way they were. They were paralyzing; they were stilted.

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I remember one day, when things were going frightfully well, I went to buy myself a really smashing car. I asked them to show me a Porsche with an automatic gearbox, and the salesman called over all the other salesmen, and they stood around absolutely roaring with laughter.

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Jean Shrimpton was the most beautiful of all the models I have known. To walk down the King's Road, Chelsea, with Shrimpton was like walking through the rye. Strong men just keeled over right and left as she strode up the street.

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In America, they never make anything without first having a market survey to ask the public what they want. People only ask for things they already know about, so you don't get anything new that way. That's why American fashion is stuck.

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I divide my time between all the mud and open space in Surrey and the social life and work in London, particularly Chelsea, which still has the same village feel that it had in the swinging Sixties.

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When I opened my first shop, city gents were still carrying tightly furled umbrellas and wearing bowler hats. It was into this world that I launched my new ideas about fashion.

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I liked masculine fabrics: Prince of Wales checks, city pinstripes, and flannels - worn with black tights, flattish shoes.

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I designed the miniskirt that caused so much havoc in the Sixties - the miniskirt that was such fun but has travelled well to today.

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Only ugliness is obscene.

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People call things 'vulgar' when they are new to them. When they have become old, they become 'good taste.'

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Good taste is death; vulgarity is life.

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I saw no reason why childhood shouldn't last forever. So I created clothes that worked and moved and allowed people to run, to jump, to leap, to retain their precious freedom.

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I didn't get fat even when I was pregnant. You have to work very hard at staying slim, and it's a bore. But it's worth it.

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Quotes by Mary Quant