Mini Skirts in the Swinging Sixties

Charlie Clarke
Oct 18, 2021
2 min read

Updated: Nov 11

Random Reminiscences from Teenage Years by 60s Pop Star,

Dottie Pickles.

The Mini

Jean Shrimpton caused a sensation when she wore a mini skirt to the Melbourne Cup in Australia, 1965. However, teenagers were already wearing minis, as this pic taken in Carnaby Street shows.

My sister Eileen, who was nineteen (I was only eleven) loved the daring and exciting style. She told me at the time that wearing a mini skirt or dress made her feel incredibly liberated.

While opinions differ on who invented the mini, French designer André Courrèges, John Bates and Jean Varon were among the contenders, it was Mary Quant who commercialised and brought it to the masses. Quant’s mini was simple and playful, modelled in bright fabrics with coloured tights, knee-high boots and Peter Pan collars.

Bazaar

In November 1955, Mary Quant opened Bazaar in Kings Road with her future husband, Alexander Plunkett Green. Initially they bought clothes in but within a few months Mary was designing and making clothes for the boutique.

Bazaar sparked a new trend as it became a meeting place, a mecca where the rich treated it as a venue for a kind of continual cocktail party.

The Chelsea Set

Boutiques were soon replacing small utility shops along King’s Road as it became the place where you’d find the Chelsea Set during the day. It was full of Chelsea girls with their aristocrat and pop star boyfriends in velvet suits.

Although the mini remained popular well into the 1960s, another revolutionary change occurred during the swinging sixties era.

Biba

Freelance fashion designer, Barbara Hulanicki opened her boutique Biba, in Abingdon Road, Kensington, with the help of her husband Stephen Fitz-Simon in September 1964. The interior of Biba was dark and exotic, a glittering world of jumbled clothes, beads, lurex and feathers spilling out over the counters.

The Biba clothes designed by Barbara Hulanicki were affordable even for students. The boutique was so crowded on Saturdays there would often be a queue of keen shoppers on the pavement outside.

Mary Quant’s designs had heralded a new era of mini skirts and strong geometric patterns. Barbara Hulanicki’s classic Biba style had more influences towards Art Nouveau and Art Deco with horizontal shoulders, tight sleeves, long torsos and maxi length dresses and coats.

The Biba brand, the boutique and the inclusive Biba lifestyle became truly iconic as Barbara Hulanicki designs were worn by many pop stars of the day.

The Swinging Sixties

Mary Quant and Barbara Hulanicki played a huge part in the history of the era known as the Swinging Sixties and in making London a major fashion city at a time when Paris was the centre of fashion.