╥But I love vulgarity. Good taste is death, vulgarity is life.╙ I had asked Mary Quant whether she did not feel there to be an element of vulgarity in cut-out and see-through dresses which, giving an illusion of nothing beneath, can be regarded as an aspect of the permissive society.
╥People call things vulgar when they are new to them. When they have become old they become good taste. The manufacturers who make my clothes and the people with financial interests in things I design never like anything when I first show it to them. But the critical people, the people who understand fashion, they jump at the new thing, they╒re excited. In America, they never make anything without first having a market survey to ask the public what they want. People only ask for things they already know about, so you don╒t get anything new that way. That╒s why American fashion is stuck.╙
╥You would agree then that a great designer is one who gives people what they want before they know they want it?╙
╥Yes, fashion doesn╒t really influence the climate of opinion, it reflects what is really in the air. It reflects what people are reading and thinking and listening to, and architecture, painting, attitudes to success and to society.╙
Conscientious objectors
╥Now America has produced a million or more people who have refused to go and kill. If there were a war in Europe tomorrow, there would be millions of European conscientious objectors. The Beautiful People are non-violent anarchists, constructive anarchists. They are the real breakthrough. But I have been worrying about the way they dress. It can╒t be called a fashion because it╒s old clothes, and it╒s always a valid criticism of designers if they fail to understand people╒s feelings and interpret them properly.╙
Turning again to permissiveness, Mary said: ╥People only see permissiveness in the sense of having more. But the young today are less materialistic and more intelligent than they╒ve ever been. And they╒ve got sex in perspective, they╒re not hung up on it any more, it╒s not difficult, they take it or leave it alone. They want money to spend, of course, but they don╒t want permanent possessions and super places to live in. They just want to be happy and to paint and write and do things, but not to own things. They╒re absolutely right. After all, every trouble in the world has been caused by envy, cupidity, material ambitions. The young today have no ambitions. It╒s sick to be ambitious ╤ only the creative people are ambitious. There will never be any trouble in filling the creative jobs, and far more people who have to do dull monotonous work could be trained to creative or constructive jobs. There╒s a new climate of living now, which was started by the young in the late 1950s and has been gathering momentum. We have taken the snobbery out of fashion.╙
The tickets followed
╥Was it you who triggered off the fashion explosion?╙
╥Not really. In the beginning I was just typical of the people who felt like that. Then the tickets followed. It was not happening because of me. It was simply that I was part of it.╙
╥Yes, you said in ╘Quant by Quant╒ that you just happened to start making clothes when that particular ╘something in the air╒ was coming to the boil╔ the teenage trend, the pop records and espresso bars and jazz clubs, the rejuvenated ╘Queen╒ magazine, ╘Beyond the Fringe,╒ ╘Private Eye,╒ the discotheques, and ╘That Was The Week That Was╒ were all born on the same wavelength.╙
╥You have said that fashion reflects the age we live in, so you would agree that, just as there is brutalism in architecture, painting, and theatre, and music, there is an element of brutalism in fashion today? I am thinking particularly of the presentation of fashion, and most particularly of the work of some of our most influential fashion photographers. The intention is to shock, although the possibilities of shocking our present society must soon be exhausted.╙
╥Pornography is great if it╒s good.╙
╥What is good pornography?╙
╥Good pornography is erotic but pleasing. Only ugliness is obscene.╙
Earlier we had looked at some of the photographs in a glossy magazine and paused at one of a model girl in knickerbockers lying on her back with her legs straddled up in the air. ╥You see,╙ Mary had said, ╥this is a tremendously sexy picture, but in actual fact the girl is more inaccessible than she would be in any other period of fashion. Just look ╤ she╒s got those thick tweed knickerbockers buckled tight under the knee, and she╒ll have stocking tights underneath and perhaps a pantie girdle as well. That╒s the thing about today╒s fashions ╤ they╒re sexy to look at but really more puritan than they╒ve ever been. In European countries where they ban mini-skirts in the streets and say they╒re an invitation to rape, they don╒t understand about stocking tights underneath.╙
╥Have you any theory to explain why fashion has virtually abolished the bust? At fashion shows the model girls appear to have bosoms as flat as two pancakes.╙
╥The bosom is a motherhood symbol. In time of war, soldiers far from home yearn back to the comforts of mother and all that, and their pin-up girls all have big bosoms. Marilyn Monroe, Lollobrigida, Jayne Mansfield, they could all be considered by-products of the war. American men have a mother complex, so they always go for bosoms.╙
╥You know James Laver╒s famous fashion theory of the erogenous zone which shifts the focus of attraction in different periods from ankles, to hips, to breasts and so on╔ what is the erogenous zone of our present period?╙
╥The crutch. This is a very balanced generation, and the crutch is the most natural erogenous zone. Clothes are designed to lead the eye to it. The way girls model clothes is all doing the same thing. It╒s not ╘come hither,╒ but it╒s provocative. She╒s standing there defiantly with her legs apart saying ╘I╒m very sexy, I enjoy sex, I feel provocative, but you╒re going to have a job to get me. You╒ve got to excite me and you╒ve got to be jolly marvellous to attract me╔╒ Now that there is the pill, women are the sex in charge. They, and they only, can decide to conceive.╙ But there is an ironical twist to this that Mary Quant has noticed. She says that in the days when parents were too shy to tell their daughters about sex, girls were brought up on purely romantic ideas and when they married it was often a shock. Now, when sex is discussed everywhere, parents are shy of talking about romance and true love╔ ╥Girls simply aren╒t prepared. Then when they fall in love, they lose their heads, and that╒s when they get deliberately pregnant.╙
