Dame Barbara Mary Quant

Barbara Mary Quant was born in Blackheath, London, to Welsh schoolteacher parents. She studied illustration at Goldsmiths College before opening her groundbreaking boutique, Bazaar, on the Kings Road in Chelsea in 1955 with her husband Alexander Plunket Greene. Bazaar rapidly became the beating heart of Swinging London, attracting musicians, models, and artists.

Quant revolutionized women's fashion by designing playful, accessible clothes that young women could run, dance, and live freely in. In the early 1960s, she popularized the miniskirt—naming it after her favorite car, the Mini—and paired it with colorful patterned tights and Vidal Sassoon's iconic five-point bob haircut. She pioneered hotpants, waterproof mascara, and manufactured ready-to-wear lines under her recognizable black daisy logo. In 1966, Quant received an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II, accepting it at Buckingham Palace in a cream minidress, and was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2015.