Latest news with #MaryQuant
Spectator
3 days ago
- General
- Spectator
The cunning meanings of quant
The FT headline said: 'Man Group orders quants back to office five days a week.' I didn't know what quants were and all my husband could say was: 'Complete quants', as though it were funny. Of course I kept thinking of Mary Quant, and I suppose her name was French in origin. There was a Hugo le Cuint in 1208 and a Richard le Queynte in Hampshire in 1263. The name would relate to quant or quaint, meaning 'clever' or 'cunning', and derived from Latin cognitus. The varied spelling overlapped with the word Chaucer used for a woman's private parts, which comes from a completely different Latin word. Such is the elasticity of language, where words of distinct meaning can have exactly the same form, that another word quant has been in use for 600 years to mean a sort of punt pole with a flanged end to avoid being caught in the mud of the Norfolk Broads. The same pole-like element called a quant is found in windmills to transmit drive to the upper millstone. This all sounds like something from Call My Bluff, but the funny thing about the pole-like quant is that in Latin, as Thomas Shadwell noted in his translation of Juvenal, contus means a bargepole, as kontos does in Greek. Yet today's etymologists refuse to fall for the casual resemblance. I would like to imagine that, in the context of the FT headline, City workers were to be punted by quant-power down the river every working day. But the City quants are nothing but quantitative analysts, no doubt given to fits of quantitative easing. Quant as an abbreviation of quantitative was first observed among chemical scientists in the 19th century, but was applied to financial analysts only in the late 1970s. The abbreviation has something of the flavour of cit, popular from the 17th century as a name for an inhabitant of a city – 'in an ill sense' as Samuel Johnson put it, 'a pert, low townsman'. But be they never so high, they'll be coming in five days a week.
Spectator
13-06-2025
- General
- Spectator
Save the miniskirt!
What is it about men and miniskirts? A few months ago, I read with horror – but sadly not surprise – about a school that was considering banning girls from wearing skirts. Apparently, residents in Whitstable, Kent, were so alarmed at the 'inappropriate skirt lengths' spotted around town they had complained to the local school. Headteacher Alex Holmes (you guessed it – a man) immediately dashed off a letter informing parents that all pupils could be forced to wear trousers as part of a new 'gender neutral uniform' in response. The miniskirt is a symbol of women's liberation – not sexual servitude I'm sorry, what? Are we talking about a pretty seaside town in Kent or downtown Tehran? I thought the days of men lining girls up in a row to measure their hemlines were over. Clearly not. That letter sent a grim message to teenage girls. It told them that wearing short skirts is morally corrupt, sexually deviant and dangerous. How depressing. It got me thinking about my hemlines over the years. Back at school, me and my mates would try to outbid each other when it came to who had the miniest miniskirt. I went to a comprehensive in London in the nineties, so didn't have to wear uniform. Instead, every weekend we would scour the clothes rails at Topshop picking out the latest thigh-slimming numbers. We all wanted to look like Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Friends series 1/2 (think black mini, white top and knee-high boots). If I'm honest, I still want to look like this. Looking back at photos of those years, I made some terrible fashion mistakes. I'm not sure the Adidas 3-stripe shell suit partnered with a beret was ever a good idea. But those skirts are not one of them. The miniskirt is a symbol of women's liberation – not sexual servitude. Invented by British designer Mary Quant in the 1960s so women could 'run and dance', they were short on the hemline and big on fun. And they soon went global. In Iran, women slipped into their miniskirts, cut their hair off into bobs, and went to university to study to be scientists, academics and engineers. But if a woman in Iran wore a miniskirt in public today she would be arrested and brutally punished. Those who bravely defy the morality police and refuse to wear a hijab and show their hair in public are lashed. Or, worse still, have their eyes gouged out. It is a double punishment. A cruel act of violence that leaves women unable to see – and robs them of their looks. It is also a salutary lesson for us all. Women fought hard for the right to wear what they want. And these rights can be lost too. Our schools should be teaching teenage girls to be proud of their looks and confident to wear what they want. No man should be getting his tape measure out to check a girl's hemline. Even if he is a headteacher.
BBC News
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Mod clothing exhibition set to open in Brighton
An exhibition celebrating the clothing of the mod youth culture in the 1960s is set to open in a city which has close connections with the In Crowd: Mod Fashion & Style 1958-66 opens at Brighton Museum on 10 May and features outfits designed by Mary Quant, John Stephen and the original Brighton-based mod brand Ben Sherman. The display is curated by Roger K Burton, an expert in vintage fashion, and features rare and early mod outfits drawn from his collection. Mr Burton, who has styled films including Brighton-based Quadrophenia and Absolute Beginners, said the exhibition was "a chance to step into the world of a transformative youth culture that left an indelible mark on fashion and society". He said: "The Mods rejected the 1950s, favouring sharp tailoring, bold colours, and a sense of modernity that captured the spirit of youth culture. "More than just a fashion statement, they embraced a fresh outlook on life, celebrating youth, freedom, and modernity in ways that continue to inspire today."The exhibition showcases the influential designers who defined the mod movement with sleek miniskirts, sharp suits, and crisp button-down shirts that embodied its forward-thinking spirit. "These garments were statements of individuality, rebellion, and modernity," said Mr Burton. Hedley Swain, chief executive of Brighton & Hove Museums, said: "This exhibition not only showcases the remarkable craftsmanship and innovation of mod fashion but also celebrates Brighton's unique historical connection to this influential youth movement."Founded in Brighton in 1963, Ben Sherman has become a symbol of sharp British style, favoured by the mod movement for its tailored designs and contemporary aesthetics. The heritage brand will present an "archival installation", Ben Sherman: The Decades, which will run alongside the main exhibition from 23 May.
Telegraph
16-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
How the Telegraph predicted Swinging London
On April 16 1965, The Daily Telegraph's Weekend magazine had a cover feature by John Crosby entitled 'London: The Most Exciting City', which declared: 'Suddenly, the young own the town', and claimed that it was now the place 'where the action is, the gayest, most uninhibited – and in a wholly new, very modern sense – the most coolly elegant city in the world.' Crosby, a well-known American journalist and television critic, was the London correspondent of the New York Herald Tribune, living on the King's Road in Chelsea at the heart of much that was newly fashionable. What makes his piece especially significant is that it appeared an entire year before the article that is often credited with having prompted the whole mid-1960s ' Swinging London ' legend, Time magazine's famous April 1966 US cover, 'London: The Swinging City'. These two high-profile features reflected a shift in popular culture that had been building up since the middle of the previous decade, exemplified by the recent American success of multiple 'British Invasion' bands, notably The Beatles. The initial stirrings had begun around 1955, when the UK's home-grown skiffle craze led many young people to pick up guitars and try to make music of their own, and Mary Quant opened her first boutique on the King's Road. In those days, pop music was supposed to only come from America, and ground-breaking new fashions solely from the Paris catwalks, yet during the early part of the following decade, British bands gradually began showing up on music charts worldwide, and Quant's innovative styles were breaking through internationally, as she explained when I interviewed her in 2004: 'From 1962 I started to design clothes and underwear for [American department store chain] JC Penney – as well as my own Mary Quant collection. I was commuting to New York once a month, which I loved.' The year 1962 also saw the release of the first James Bond film, Dr No, based on Ian Fleming's million-selling novels. Fleming grew up in Chelsea, and the fictional spy in his books lives in an un-named square off the King's Road. Sean Connery, star of the new film series, had cheap lodgings in the area in the late 1950s, and John Barry composed most of his classic Bond themes such as Goldfinger at his home on nearby Cadogan Square. This irreverent, wisecracking and stylish movie star appeared on the scene just as the first flush of more gritty, 'kitchen sink' films was drawing to a close. Many of the latter were the work of directors who had started out in 1956 at the Royal Court Theatre on Sloane Square, at the eastern end of the King's Road, empowered by the shock waves created by John Osborne's debut play for the resident company there, Look Back in Anger. Moving decidedly away from middle- or upper-class drawing-room locations, and placing working-class characters at the heart of the action, such plays and films – together with the anti-heroes depicted in the so-called Angry Young Men novels of the late 1950s – helped prepare the ground for the kind of 1960s figures on-screen, in the pop charts and elsewhere in the wider culture who talked back and didn't play by the old rules. A prime example of the latter would be a group of scruffs in 1962 who were living at the cheaper reaches of the King's Road in a squalid flat and gigging around town at any venue that would let them play their own interpretation of US rhythm and blues. John Gunnell, who together with his brother Rik ran the Flamingo Club in Wardour Street, once told me he booked the band for a month of Monday night shows during that era, but sacked them after the first one after they failed to pull a crowd. Nevertheless, The Rolling Stones did not let this deter them, and within two years they had progressed from Chelsea to the US charts. John Crosby originally considered calling his 1965 Telegraph feature 'Swinging London', and a year earlier had already informed readers of his New York Herald Tribune column that Britain was a 'swinging' nation. Now, in the wake of the 1966 Time magazine cover article, the US media descended in force on London looking for stories, and at one point that year, as Mary Quant told me, 'American news magazines and TV were often filming both sides of the King's Road at the same time'. Time declared that 'in a once sedate world of faded splendour, everything new, uninhibited and kinky is blooming at the top of London life', and the King's Road seemed to be the epicentre of all that had been declared groovy. 'Saturday afternoon in Chelsea, at La Rêve restaurant. Wolfing down a quick lunch are some of the most switched-on young men in town: Actor Terence Stamp, 26, star of The Collector and steady date of model Jean Shrimpton; actor Michael Caine, 33, the Mozart-loving spy in The Ipcress File; hairdresser Sassoon, 38, whose cut can be seen both at Courrèges in Paris and on Princess Meg; Ace photographer David Bailey, 27, professional associate of Antony Armstrong-Jones; and Doug Hayward, 28, Chelsea's 'innest' private tailor.' Much of the attention on the modish capital was met with predictable derision by Londoners themselves, and by the satirists at Private Eye, who printed a 'Swinging England All-Purpose Titillation Supplement' to assist the 'very small number of American periodicals which have not yet produced their 24-page survey of the Swinging, Vibrant, Thrusting New England Where Even the Hovercraft Wear Mini-Skirts etc etc'. Time's own letters column also received some scathing responses from British readers, including one that said: 'For the year's most ridiculous generalisations, you deserve to swing indeed. All of you. And not in London either.' Despite all this, the image of the capital as a wellspring of the emerging 1960s pop culture would continue to be disseminated as the decade progressed by numerous fashion articles worldwide, books such as Len Deighton's London Dossier, Karl Dallas's Swinging London – A Guide to Where the Action Is or the self-consciously trendy pulp novels of Adam Diment such as The Dolly Dolly Spy, scores of famous rock stars including Chelsea resident Keith Richards in his artfully tattered velvet jackets and scarves from hip King's Road boutique Granny Takes a Trip, by films such as Alfie or Blow-Up and stylish London-based TV shows like The Avengers (now shot in colour for the benefit of the American market), and by a blizzard of magazine articles either celebrating or decrying the myth of Swinging London. As for the man whose Telegraph feature helped unleash the hysteria, the Liverpool Echo reported in June 1966 that 'Crosby today nervously acknowledges paternity of the swinging movement but says he was only trying to be funny about one minor aspect of English life', and faced with the prospect of being interviewed by Paris Match for yet another article about the subject, Crosby himself observed: 'When Frenchmen come to England to ask an American questions about London's sex, you know the millennium has arrived.'
The Independent
21-03-2025
- The Independent
UK attractions still lagging behind pre-Covid visitor numbers as tourists stay away
London 's British Museum and Natural History Museum are thriving – but most UK tourist attractions are lagging well behind pre-Covid visitor numbers. That is the conclusion from analysis by The Independent of last year's numbers from the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions. Total visitor numbers to 400 attractions are down 8.8 per cent compared with 2019 – meaning one in 11 tourists are staying away. The English capital has a complete monopoly on the top 10 sights: all are in or very close to London. The British Museum heads the table, with 6.48 million visitors, which is 4 per cent ahead of pre-Covid figures. The Natural History Museum drew 6.3 million visitors last year, a rise of one-sixth in five years. In third place, Windsor Great Park at 5.67 million. Tate Modern, the Southbank Centre, the V&A, the National Gallery, Somerset House, the Tower of London and the Science Museum complete the top 10. The V&A South Kensington saw its busiest summer since 2018, welcoming more than one million visitors between July and September – in part thanks to the temporary Taylor Swift Songbook trail. The director of Alva, Bernard Donoghue OBE, told The Independent travel podcast: 'We celebrate the fact that London is so popular and a must-see destination for the world. But it is a a real challenge to get people out of London. 'That's why we've been doing a lot of work with destination management organisations and local visitor economy partnerships to promote them as part of an itinerary to overseas visitors.' Eleventh place is taken by the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. The remainder of the top 20 are in either London or the Scottish capital, including Kew Gardens (12th) and Edinburgh Castle (15th). Stonehenge in Wiltshire (21st) is the first non-capital attraction. Visitor numbers to the mysterious masonry circle are down 15 per cent compared with 2019. The leading Scottish tourist attraction outside Edinburgh is the Riverside Museum in Glasgow at 24th. The transport and social history museum is doing slightly better than the average, being only 5 per cent down compared with 2019. But Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow has slipped from 25th to 27th, with a 35 per cent slide in visitors compared with pre-Covid numbers. in previous years, exhibitions on Mary Quant and John Byrne attracted very large crowds. In 2024 the venue did not host an equivalent high-profile exhibition. Mr Donoghue said that with 3.2 per cent year-on-year growth there was 'room for optimism'. He said: 'If I was an economist, I'd say slow but steady growth. 'The cost of living crisis is still absolutely with us, so people are making really tactical choices very clearly about how they spend their leisure pounds and their leisure hours. 'It's financially challenging to be a visitor attraction, but the real glimmer is that people are saying, 'We're still prioritising days out, and we're still prioritising spending special time with special people in special places, and that's at visitor attractions. 'They may be sacrificing other things like takeaway meals or subscriptions to Netflix or whatever before they sacrifice day trips.' The highest-rated attraction in Northern Ireland is Titanic Belfast, with a 10 per cent year-on-year taking it eight places higher to 35th. Wales did not perform as well as the other three UK nations; St. Fagan's National Museum of History was the leading attraction, in 62nd place. It has lost one-fifth of its pre-Covid visitors. The appeal of the UK to overseas tourists has been tempered by two post-Brexit policies: The ban on Europeans with ID cards but no passports, which excludes around 300 million potential visitors. The introduction of the electronic travel authorisation (ETA) scheme, which from 2 April will require all foreign visitors except Irish citizens to complete an online form and pay £10. The director of Alva said: 'Not only were we saying to the world, we're quite expensive to come here because we've got VAT at 20 per cent, we've got Air Passenger Duty, we've got the looming prospect of 'bed tax' in different local authorities across the nation, and electronic travel authorisation, but we're also the only European country that doesn't have tax-free shopping as well. 'We're having robust conversations with government about our international attractiveness as a destination around the world. 'If you wanted to get an economy up and running and recovering really quickly, you'd just make yourself utterly desirable to the rest of the world as a tourism destination.'
