Mary Quant exhibition heads to Bendigo Art Gallery from London’s V&A Museum

The designer who popularised the miniskirt to have major retrospective in Bendigo

Designer Mary Quant, a central figure of the youth movement in 1960s London, having her hair cut by another fashion icon, hairdresser Vidal Sassoon. Picture: Ronald Dumont/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Bendigo Art Gallery has acquired the blockbuster fashion show Mary Quant: Fashion Revolutionary for 2021.

Quant is one of the most influential designers of the 20th century, a central figure in the youth movement of 1960s London and generally considered to be the creator of the miniskirt.

The exhibition comes direct from London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, where it opened last year and became the third most-visited fashion exhibitions at the institution, after those of Christian Dior and Alexander McQueen, with over 400,000 visitors.

Bendigo director Jessica Bridgfoot said she was expecting the exhibition to be “the tonic that we all need” after the popular regional gallery was shut down for much of the year due to Covid restrictions.

“We’re expecting it to be fairly popular with our core audience, given the nostalgia for that time,” Bridgfoot told The Australian.

The exhibition will include over 110 garments, covering 20 years from the mid-50s to 70s, including her mass-market iteration with The Ginger Group, alongside other ephemera including advertising, dolls, make-up and photographs.

Kellie Wilson modelling Mary Quant shirtdress and shorts, 1966. Picture: Duffy © Duffy Archive.

While the items were drawn from the V&A’s own collection and the Quant archives, many of the items were the result of a public call-out by the V&A called WeWantQuant.

“The V&A managed to acquire lots of garments from the public, with stories of them in their Mary Quant at seminal moments in their lives.

“It was wrapped up in that post-war time, when things were changing for women, who were starting to join the workforce in a meaningful way. Mary was a role model for young women as well.”

The exhibition will open on 20 March and run through to 11 July.