Mary Quant

Of course, I remember when everybody was thin. It wasn't until I went to America in the Sixties that I saw anyone who wasn't skinny thin.

Fashion is not frivolous. It is a part of being alive today.

Eating outdoors is a particular passion - that is, eating trestle-table a la nicoise.

I love restaurants, and I love cooking.

I absolutely adore cows. They're the most fascinating, gentle and beautiful animals. Their eyes are so amazing. I have ten that live on the land around my house. I love to talk to them. There are few things better than falling asleep in a field and being woken up by an inquisitive cow.

Fashion is a tool... to compete in life outside the home. People like you better, without knowing why, because people always react well to a person they like the looks of.

Risk it; go for it. Life always gives you another chance, another go at it. It's very important to take enormous risks.

Let me give you an idea of Fifties Britain. The war had ended ten years before, and most people had returned to their gardens and allotments hoping life would revert to how it was before the hostilities.

Good taste is death; vulgarity is life.

As well as being a creative genius, Vidal Sassoon was a formative figure of the Sixties. Along with the Pill and the mini-skirt, his influence was truly liberating.

I remember one day, when things were going frightfully well, I went to buy myself a really smashing car. I asked them to show me a Porsche with an automatic gearbox, and the salesman called over all the other salesmen, and they stood around absolutely roaring with laughter.

I designed the miniskirt that caused so much havoc in the Sixties - the miniskirt that was such fun but has travelled well to today.