Editing Mary Quant (section)

===Quant and the miniskirt===
[[File:1960s Mary Quant minidress, green, purple and white jersey.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.68|Jersey minidress by Mary Quant, late 1960s]]

The miniskirt, described as one of the defining [[1960s in fashion|fashions of the 1960s]],<ref>{{cite book |first1=Ros |last1=Horton |first2=Sally |last2=Simmons |date=2007 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7LYLOj2APSsC&pg=PA170 |title=Women Who Changed the World |page=170|publisher=Quercus |isbn=9781847240262 }}</ref> is one of the garments most widely associated with Quant. While she is often cited as the inventor of the style, this claim has been challenged by others. [[Marit Allen]], a contemporary fashion journalist and editor of the influential "Young Ideas" pages for UK [[Vogue (British magazine)|''Vogue'']], firmly stated that another British fashion designer, [[John Bates (designer)|John Bates]], rather than Quant or André Courrèges, was the original creator of the miniskirt.<ref>{{cite web|title=Garments worn by Marit Allen|url=http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/g/garments-worn-by-marit-allen/|publisher=Victoria and Albert Museum|access-date=12 July 2012|archive-date=2 August 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120802100521/http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/g/garments-worn-by-marit-allen/|url-status=live}}</ref> Others credit Courrèges with the invention of the style.<ref name=jess>{{cite news|last=Cartner-Morley|first=Jess|title=Chelsea girl who instigated a new era|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/dec/02/audreygillan|access-date=12 July 2012|newspaper=The Guardian|date=2 December 2000|archive-date=11 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211211135123/https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/dec/02/audreygillan|url-status=live}}</ref> 

However, skirts had been getting shorter since the 1950s, and had reached the knee by the early sixties, but "Quant wanted them higher so they would be less restricting—they allowed women to run for a bus ... and were much, much sexier".<ref>{{cite book |last=Miles |first=Barry |author-link=Barry Miles |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r8xbaIlrUREC&pg=PA194 |title=The British Invasion: The Music, the Times, the Era |page=194 |publisher=Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. |year=2009|isbn=9781402769764 }}<!-- ISBN needed --></ref>

[[File:Mary Quant toont haar zomerlaarzen op schoenenbeurs te Utrecht de show, Bestanddeelnr 922-2259.jpg|thumb|upright=0.63|Mary Quant minidress at a 1969 fashion show in the Netherlands]]

Quant later said: "It was the girls on the King's Road [during the "[[Swinging London]]" scene] who invented the miniskirt. I was making easy, youthful, simple clothes, in which you could move, in which you could run and jump and we would make them the length the customer wanted. I wore them very short and the customers would say, 'Shorter, shorter.'"<ref name="Designers"/> She gave the miniskirt its name, after her favourite make of car, the [[Mini]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Miles |first=Barry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r8xbaIlrUREC&pg=PA194 |title=The British Invasion: The Music, the Times, the Era |page=203 |publisher=Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. |year=2009|isbn=9781402769764 }}<!-- ISBN needed --></ref> and said of its wearers: "They are curiously feminine, but their femininity lies in their attitude rather than in their appearance ... She enjoys being noticed, but wittily. She is lively—positive—opinionated."<ref name="seebohm19710719">{{cite news|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A-MCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA34|title=English Girls in New York: They Don't Go Home Again|work=New York|date=19 July 1971|access-date=6 January 2015|author=Seebohm, Caroline|page=34}}</ref> The fashion model [[Twiggy]] popularised the miniskirt abroad.<ref name="Courier">{{cite news|title=Mary Quant: The designer who launched a fashion revolution|url=https://thecourieruk.shorthandstories.com/mary-quant/|access-date=2 October 2022|work=The Courier|archive-date=2 October 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221002081940/https://thecourieruk.shorthandstories.com/mary-quant/|url-status=live}}</ref>

In addition to the miniskirt, Quant is often credited with inventing the coloured and patterned tights that tended to accompany the garment, although their creation is also attributed to the Spanish couturier [[Cristóbal Balenciaga]], who offered [[harlequin]]-patterned tights in 1962,<ref name=jess/><ref>{{cite book|last=Carter|first=Ernestine|title=The Changing World of Fashion: 1900 to the Present |year=1977|publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson|location=London|isbn=9780297773498|pages=213|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AkdEAAAAYAAJ&q=Balenciaga+harlequin}}</ref> or to John Bates.<ref name="bates">{{Cite book |last=Lester |first=Richard |year=2008 |title=John Bates: Fashion Designer |url=https://archive.org/details/johnbatesfashion0000lest |url-access=registration |location=Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK |publisher=ACC Editions |page=[https://archive.org/details/johnbatesfashion0000lest/page/42/mode/2up?q=tights 42] |isbn=9781851495702 |oclc=232982751}}</ref>{{Failed verification|date=April 2023}}<!-- There is nothing in the book stating that Bates created the tights per se; the other mention is on page 57: https://archive.org/details/johnbatesfashion0000lest/page/56/mode/2up?q=tights. -->