Mary Quant launched the clothes that made the Sixties swing

Tunics were at the back. Once you had worked through the immense Butterick pattern catalogue, past pages of pastel A-line dresses or tight-skirted suits, suddenly the look changed. It became rectangular, plain, sleek and very short, and if you were a teenager in the early 1960s that was what you wanted. Your parents would never buy such clothes for you, but if you were determined you would make them yourself. Out on the lounge floor you’d spread the fabric, a shock of scarlet, orange or electric blue, and in a few days you, too, would be wearing Mary Quant.