Fashion – The Mini Skirt

What’s not generally known is that the Mini Skirt – that icon of 60s fashion – struggled even to make it into the 1960s decade at all!

As the 1960s began, clothes for most teenagers were either sourced from the children’s section or the adult section. Odd as it sounds today, and it does sound odd to write this, there were no special clothes for teenagers – girls were either dressed as children or dressed like their mothers! However, that is except for a designer, Mary Quant, who had begun a dress shop in the Kings Road, London.

She had an interest in art and design and a considerable flair for fashion and began selling clothes that were designed just for teenagers and people in their 20s.

Of course, short skirts had been around before the 1960s. However, they were mainly seen as sports wear but Mary Quant changed all that. She began to popularise the short skirt when she began selling it from her shop. Although the skirt is considered a 60s icon, the sales only began half way through the decade in 1965.

London was, as it is now, a good place to begin a new fashion and the miniskirt’s appeal spread but, naturally, did so slowly. Communication and the taking up of new ideas proceeded a lot more slowly then and it was the end of 1965 and well into the following year before it was being offered by major fashion houses.

Acceptance
Then, as with all new fashions, it took time to gain universal acceptance so the mini is really a fashion item for the masses that became popular with teenagers towards the end of the decade. Older women began wearing the shorter skirts, too, as the trend slowly ascended the age barriers and by the end of the decade a good many women were wearing shorter, if not mini, skirts.

However, the fashion didn’t last long and in a few short years, by the beginning years of the 1970s, hemlines began to plunge again and the day of the mini was over.

Writing this, a good many years after the 1960s, I was surprised at how short a time the mini actually lasted. My memory of the mini had it lasting for much longer and I, too, was surprised that it never appeared until so late on in the decade.

However, the mini skirt did not, as it were, disappear but periodically reappeared as a new fashion and today something similar is often worn over jeans and called a microskirt.

Why is the mini so representative of the 60s?
I think the point is that the 1960s was a time of liberation for teenagers who were looking for ways to defy convention and create their own recognisable identity. One way to do this, of course, was to wear clothing that identified them as young, free-spirited and fashion conscious individuals. It also helped if the clothing was seen as slightly rebellious and something that older people would not wear.

The mini was seen as daring and had, too, that rebellious streak so it flourished quickly as a way for teenagers to assert their new status. When it began it was also something that would only be worn by young people.

That’s one reason but, also, it shared its name with the Mini car and that helped to make the identification with the 60s complete.

Therefore, in the minds of later generations and those seeking to classify and understand the 60s, the mini – both the car and skirt – became synonymous with the generation.

There is a rumour, too, that Mary Quant, when she began marketing the skirt, had, in fact, named it after her favourite make of car and that must have helped!

Whatever the reason, the mini skirt and the Mini car are now seen as representative of the whole of the 1960s decade, despite the skirt only turning up at the very end!

If you want to look at mini skirts in photographs then Bing’s long search is more than worth a look and a link to the search is here.

Photo FacemePLS