Quant

Actor Sadie Frost’s direc­to­r­i­al debut rides on an aes­thet­ic wave of the Swing­ing Six­ties by tak­ing the icon­ic fash­ion design­er Mary Quant as its sub­ject. Frost takes a fair­ly con­ven­tion­al doc­u­men­tary approach, but it serves as a com­pre­hen­sive intro­duc­tion to a mas­ter of her craft.

It seems strange at first that Quant’s own voice is large­ly absent from the film. She’s revealed to be a very pri­vate indi­vid­ual, and while aspects of her per­son­al life are dis­cussed by friends and fam­i­ly, it’s refresh­ing to see a doc­u­men­tary about a woman that gives most of its run­time to the art she cre­at­ed. Frost makes good use of archive mate­r­i­al, bet­ter than break­away scenes fea­tur­ing a car­i­ca­ture Camil­la Ruther­ford imi­tat­ing Quant, which ensures her real voice is heard.

What Quant most inter­est­ing­ly offers is a por­trait of the fash­ion house and its influ­ence beyond the hey­day of the 1960s. The label remains incred­i­bly pop­u­lar in Japan, and while Quant her­self changed her approach and ideas over time, there are reminders of her sense of style in con­tem­po­rary women’s fash­ion. She prac­ti­cal­ly invent­ed the all-in-one make-up kit, pop­u­larised PVC out­fits, and set the bar sev­er­al inch­es high for just how far above the knee a skirt hem can sit. And as with all fash­ion trends, Quant’s orig­i­nal designs seem to be com­ing around again today.

Still, the doc­u­men­tary isn’t with­out high-pro­file con­trib­u­tors – along­side a wealth of fash­ion his­to­ri­ans and con­tem­po­raries, there are insight­ful but brief inter­views with fash­ion icons Vivi­enne West­wood and Kate Moss who reflect on Quant’s endur­ing lega­cy. They offer com­pelling analy­sis of the lib­er­a­tion women gar­nered from Quant’s designs, espe­cial­ly her pop­u­lar­i­sa­tion of the mini skirt and dress­es which gave women free­dom of move­ment. It’s cer­tain­ly more inter­est­ing to hear their per­spec­tives than those of some of the male talk­ing heads, such as Dave Davies of The Kinks, who thanks Quant for mak­ing clothes that were eas­i­er to slide one’s hands up…

There seems to be a con­tra­dic­tion between the male and female per­spec­tives on what Quant’s designs strove to achieve. This is where archival inter­views with Quant are well-placed as an arbiter, stat­ing that feel­ing sexy for women is a form of empow­er­ment. It’s no coin­ci­dence that Quant’s designs took off at the same time as the intro­duc­tion of the con­tra­cep­tive pill for women, allow­ing us to con­trol our bod­ies and futures inde­pen­dent­ly of men and there­fore giv­ing us greater sex­u­al freedom.

Quant ends by high­light­ing a major ret­ro­spec­tive exhi­bi­tion of her work which took place at the V&A in 2019 – one of the museum’s most pop­u­lar exhibits ever. Frost’s doc­u­men­tary works well as a more wide­ly acces­si­ble ver­sion of this dis­play, show­cas­ing Quant’s designs and lega­cy in a very func­tion­al and inter­est­ing way. Experts on the design­er are unlike­ly to come away with any major rev­e­la­tions, but for those who only know about Quant’s mini skirts or noth­ing at all, it’s a very inter­est­ing and enter­tain­ing watch.