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Now I present to you the most revolutionary item of clothing of the 60's. Some people
say of the entire 20th Century, the mini skirt. You can see the one I'm wearing right here.
Really, in the 50's the knee had been the shortest that really any skirts had ever been.
Mary Quant is known as the one who popularized the mini skirt. She was a British designer.
And the mini skirt, this is actually a longer mini skirt. This is maybe 6 inches above the
knee. But you had mini skirts that were 8, 9, 10 inches above the knee and it was really
a huge revolution in women's fashion. It was seen as very scandalous. Older people and
more conservatives certainly wouldn't wear it. They continued to wear the poodle skirts
and circle skirts of the 50's. But really nothing says the 60's more than a mini skirt.
It was the foundation of mod fashions. You can see from my entire outfit if you had a
mini skirt or a mini dress, boots and you'd wear it with tights. And even though people
really think of the hippie uniform as the icon of the 60's it was really a smaller group
of people. What nationally everyone wore was the mini skirt. I have another example right
here and this is in a pattern that might be more fitting to what was worn in the 60's.
And, you can tell it's very short. It sort of has a boxy cut. It wouldn't be stretchy;
it would be boxy because society wasn't really quite ready for that yet; for something to
be stretchy and short. That would come later. This was sort of a shortened version of the
Chanel suit of the 1950's in terms of the skirt. And the mini was also seen as part
of women's liberation. As the women's rights movement was growing and gaining steam in
the 60's the mini skirt really allowed women to feel freer than they had before and not
restricted. And so, it was really controversial. It was really important and obviously we still
wear mini skirts today. And so, that barrier was broken in the 60's and we should really
be excited about it.