Mary Quant Lives On

Granddaughter playing dress up, thank you Mary Quant.

The headlines read "MARY QUANT, MASTERMIND OF SWINGING '60'S STYLE, DIES" 

London (AP) Mary Quant, the visionary fashion designer whose colorful, sexy mini-skirts epitomized London in the 1960's and influenced youth culture around the world has died. She was 93. (Norman Transcript, Sunday, April 16, 2023) 

.... Some compared her impact on fashion world with The Beatles' impact on pop music. 

Mary Quant definitely made an impact on me and my mother-in-law (at the time), master seamstress, Rose Rains. Just like Mary designed clothes at the right time, I, too, became Rose's daughter-in-law at the right time of fashion.  Shortly after I married her son, Don, she wrote me a letter asking me to give her my body sizes, according to her description.  I could sew, but not without a pattern. Rose could create her own pattern. I had to ask around in those days to find out exactly what Rose wanted measured and then my neighbor helped me fill out Rose's request.

My first few outfits, hand made for me, were Nehru suits with high neck collars like the Beatles wore. I felt fashionable for the first time in my life. 

That was followed by yellow plaid patterned "Elephant Pants." She had taught me on a trip back to Miami how to match plaids and lines. Not an easy task for someone who likes to see the end in sight early in the project.

Quant, who named her new skirt after her favorite make of car, the Mini, recalled how it offered a 'feeling of freedom and liberation." From her shop on King's Road in London's trendy Chelsea neighborhood, she was part of a clothing revolution. "It was the girls on King's Road who invented the mini. I was making clothes which would let you run and dance and we would make them the length the customer wanted." She said, "I wore them very short and the customers would say, 'shorter, shorter.'"

By the time we moved back to Miami in the 1970's Mary Quant's mini-skirts were popular from one coast to the next, even in Oklahoma. Rose designed and sewed, mini-dresses for me, with matching underwear.  I worked at the public library by now and couldn't afford to look sexy or like I was showing anything personal!

Asked by the Guardian newspaper in 1967 if her clothes could be considered "vulgar" because they were so revealing, Quant replied that she loved vulgarity and embraced it. 

Her clothes became wildly popular and were worn by models such as Twiggy and Pattie Boyd, who was then married to Beatles guitarist George Harrison. 

"Snobbery has gone out of fashion, and in our shops you will find duchesses jostling with typists to buy the same dress." Quant once said. She called her shop "a sophisticated candy store for grown-ups." 

Mary Quant was correct. Wearing the newest styles made me feel like a grown-up, and my body was young and trim. 

After the decade of the 1970's, I kept only one outfit from those years, and have cherished those memories each time I clean or rearrange my closet and find the one bedazzling Beatle-mania-mini-skirt/dress that Rose made for me one New Year's.  wore it a few times and then covered it in plastic and hung it in my closest, as I moved around in my life. 

One day two years ago (when Murphy was a puppy), our granddaughter, Ruth Ann wanted to play dress-up and I said go for it. We pulled out a few old costumes and then found the bedazzling mini still wrapped in cleaners plastic. I ripped off the plastic and set the dress on the bed.  Before long Ruth Ann had brought Mary Quant back to life. For over an hour she wore that dress and played with jewelry and hats from my stash of fun clothing.  I know she enjoyed the day, but I think I enjoyed it even more.

I still can't keep my eyes off the dress and the length it is on her as opposed to the length it showed on me. All smiles....

Vintage clothing from Etsy  plaid Elephant pant

Nehru jackets from Etsy

Mini-skirts 1960's

The Bell Bottom Story

Born: February 11, 1930, Blackheath, London, United Kingdom

Died: April 13, 2023, Surrey, United Kingdom

***  I only wish I had had a camera to take photos of my daughter, Katy, when she wore my mini's as a child. 

THE MAD PLANTER: Part 2

Once upon a time, in our backyard fence row the Burning bush became a sensation over night each September when she would go from green to red in a matter of days. She was glorious to watch. She was the older of the two Bush sisters by at least ten years. Her sister across the the patio, that we planted seven years ago, shines, too, but never as bright or as large since she is protected by a Harry Potter tree (Privet) on one side and Pampas grass on the other side. It was the Privet, the Pampas and the North side fence that saved the younger sister's life during the icy winter of 2021. 

The original Burning Bush in her glory. 

Last week we cut out the last remaining off shoot from original Burning Bush's  remains. The big bush died after that winter ice and the bitter snowstorm of 2021, but last summer we nursed her off spring with care and this spring she returned, a bit slimmer than her mother bush but upright and reaching for the sun. In mid-June, I examined her and noticed her leaves were beginning to curl. Within two weeks she wilted and died before my very eyes. 

Once again the "Mad Planter" went to work. It is too hot now to dig up the roots to the big bush, but they showed above ground, and I could easily trip over them. Looking around the yard for inspiration I spied a potted plant nearby that could be moved in to replace the bush and cover the roots. I use potted plants throughout my gardens to fill spaces and holes where other plants have died or where I want a change of color or height.

This fall we will replace it with a Burning Bush or a Yew.

To be honest, there is a space where the potted plant once stood, but upon close observation I decided to let the Lillies, Sedum (Never Die) and Purple Heart fill in the space over the next few years. I do have patience, sometimes. 

 

We planted English Ivy between the Yew bushes and before I die it may fill in. 

Murphy is thrilled with his new freedom along the fence line. No more bushes scraping against his side.

The top of the fence is flat which makes for a perfect Squirrel Highway. It also gives Murphy hours of recreation, running and leaping as he chases the squirrels along the fence highway. Now we are all happy.

But gardening never ends...does it?

The Mad Planter

When we once enjoyed hours and hours of shade on our corner retreat. 

In the Midwest we ease into conversations with complete strangers by saying, 

"Get any roof damage the other night?"

"I've never seen heat like this. The flowers shrivel up before noon." 

"In all my 80+ years I ain't ever seen ice and bitter cold stick around this long."

"How many bushes and trees did you lose to the ice storm two years ago?"

Weather runs our lives in the plains. It can make or break us. Ask any golfer and she can tell you what winter kill looks like, what Poana (an unwelcome bluegrass in Bermuda)  does on the greens, about the gaps in the woods when a tree falls from the rains and the storms.  Weather shows its power in one way or another every year. 

As for me, I sigh, mumble and grumble and stand in my backyard with hands on
my hips asking Mother Nature for help and inspiration. In the last three years of severe winter weather and baking heat, we have lost all of our Photinia bushes, some that were gloriously tall and thick. 

These old Photinia where higher than our fence and kept the morning sun off of us as we rocked in the swing. This spring we hired a crew to cut and dig out the last of the row of our Photinias. Once they disappeared an ugly sore took their place---the faded tan electrical box!

No matter where I stood in the house or in the yard, the ugly brown box appeared. How dare nature treat me like this?  We lived with the eye sore for several months before I conjured up my best idea yet. On second thought, not my best idea but it worked!  

First, Jack transplanted one of freebie Crepe Myrtles in our backyard to an angle that in a few years will hide the brown box from the kitchen view. Next, he extended the stone work in the far corner where the swing sits, making it look quite cottage like. After seeing great success and new beauty with our row of Yews on the back row fence, we bought one more Yew and planted it between the swing and the brown box. 

Still, the brown box remained visible to me from every angle and my patience had run out.  I then moved two potted plants on stands to block the view, but the dog had other plans for running around the fence. I moved them away from Murphy's running path, but still left the potted plants close enough to give some beauty to the area. 

Despite our hard work, the brown box remained visible to me. As a last resort and with no patience left to wait for the plants to grow in, I planted Morning Glory seeds "all around the brown box."  Jack watched me that morning and said, "Do you really need two packages of seeds to cover that small box, and what will you do about a trellis?"

I growled. "I'll worry about that if they grow. Nature hid that brown box for nine years with the Photinias and I happen to think nature could use a little help from me." He grinned. I didn't. 

Two weeks later the Morning Glories began to grow and swirl in space. They needed a fence or trellis. I concocted a fence around the brown box and in two more weeks, they grew all over the fence. With Jack observing, but not really helping, I found string and ran it from the small fence around the brown box to the tall yard fence between neighbors.  I smiled. 

 

At last, the brown box disappeared. Such joy I experienced in hiding that ugly box, until we switched to OEC underground internet service this month. One day the man showed up and painted our yard with yellow and red lines showing OEC where not to dig. All lines led to that brown box! I guessed that I would lose one side or the other of my twisted spiraling vines. 

Luckily, good things happen sometimes and the ground crew couldn't dig near the box because the old Photinia roots prevented them. Hah! They worked around the box completely and didn't disrupt my Morning Glory waterfall.  

Hopefully, in the next few weeks the Morning Glories will be in full bloom, and the green waterfall I planted connecting to the fence will radiate with color. No one will ever know what is hidden beneath that will jungle of green leaves, and blue blossoms.   

Murphy's running path now had more shade. The large dark green leaves on the fence growing up from the bottom are Luffa plants. Before long large yellow flowers will bloom every morning and by October, we will harvest luffas for fun.