{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1717309"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1717309/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2022NG5465/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2022NG5465/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2022NG5465","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O1717309/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1717309","accessionNumber":"E.816-2022","objectType":"Design","titles":[{"title":"untitled","type":""}],"summaryDescription":"","physicalDescription":"Watercolour sketch of women in fashionable clothes","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Della Rocca, Lucina","id":"AUTH378585"},"association":{"text":"designer","id":"x36960"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"paper","id":"x30308"}],"techniques":[{"text":"watercolour","id":"x37878"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"watercolour and pencil on paper","categories":[{"text":"Designs","id":"THES48968"},{"text":"Fashion","id":"THES48957"},{"text":"Murals","id":"THES338167"},{"text":"Woman Artist","id":"THES387590"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2022NG5465"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLD","id":"THES49658"},"free":"","case":"MD","shelf":"11","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"design","id":"AAT102051"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"London","id":"x28980"},"association":{"text":"designed","id":"x29338"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1962","earliest":"1962-01-01","latest":"1962-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Given by the artist: Lucina S. Della Rocca","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"60","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"40","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Mary Quant (b. 1930) opened her first shop, Bazaar, with her boyfriend Alexander Plunket Greene and their partner Archie McNair, in the autumn of 1955, at 138a King’s Road, Chelsea. The daughter of two grammar-school teachers, Quant had met her well-connected future husband while taking an art teaching course at Goldsmiths College. Their friend McNair, an enterprising photographer and proto-property-developer, who had opened the Fantasie coffee shop a few doors away, brought business acumen to the team together with a sense of the huge potential presented by Quant’s distinctive image and design talent. Over the following decade, from this tiny, amateur boutique, driven by Plunket Greene’s aptitude for marketing, the team established Mary Quant as the leading brand for youthful fashion for women. She became the quintessential designer of the ‘swinging sixties’, rightly credited with popularising the mini-skirt, perhaps the ultimate symbol of women’s liberation. After registering the instantly recognizable daisy logo and trademark in 1966, the company expanded into cosmetics and homeware, creating an international lifestyle brand. While buying stock for Bazaar in its earliest days, Quant had sourced interesting jewellery and accessories from art school students, to complement her own designs and garments bought from London wholesalers. The shop became notorious for its distinctive shopping environment, with a restaurant in the basement, jazz music, live fashion shows and satirical window displays. In the early sixties, visual merchandiser John Bates (1937-2018) came on board to develop mannequins to Quant’s specifications, helping to build the brand’s reputation for entertaining retail displays for the two Bazaar boutiques. A second branch opened opposite Harrods in Knightsbridge in 1958. \r\n\r\nLucina Della Rocca trained in sculpture at Stroud School of Art and the Royal College of Art. In the late 1950s she worked for the mannequin manufacturers Adel Rootstein and Gems, becoming a scenic artist in the film industry, and working on commissions for theatre, restaurants, nightclubs, and retailers. She taught at Kew College for 23 years before retiring in 2002, and continues to paint, having staged a retrospective exhibition in 2021 at 54 The Gallery, Mayfair. \r\n\r\n\r\nThe sketches were made in preparation for a large-scale frieze (about a metre high) on paper displayed at Bazaar in 1962, probably the King’s Road branch. Lucina was commissioned by John Bates to paint this installation and invited to Mary Quant’s studio to sketch designs for the current collection on live models, the six surviving charcoal, ink and watercolour sketches of individual figures. These were later worked up into the final scheme showing women dressed in Quant designs as if posing in an arcaded gallery of sculpture and ceramics (reminiscent of V&A displays), as indicated in the two colour sketches. The individual preliminary drawings depict designs including some that can be securely dated with reference to published photographs and survive in V&A such as ‘Coal Heaver’, and a grey tweed knickerbocker suit, similar to a suit modelled by Jean Shrimpton for John French. These eight sketches are fashion illustrations in their own right. They offer full length views of the complete look, styled by Quant with hats and shoes, with an immediacy that complements the immaculate photographs by John French. The images are an interesting contemporary comparison to the work of Gladys Perint Palmer who sketched Quant’s shows for Women’s Wear Daily in the early 1960s. Furthermore, the sketches present an opportunity to highlight the work of versatile art school graduates such as Della Rocca and their contribution to the London retail experience in this formative time for the city’s reputation as an international centre for innovative fashion design, marketing and education.\r\n\r\n","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Design for a mural for the Mary Quant boutique by Lucina Della Rocca","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[{"text":"","id":""}],"contentPerson":[{"text":"","id":""}],"associatedPerson":[{"text":"Quant, Mary","id":"A2349"}],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["E.816-2022"],"accessionNumberNum":"816","accessionNumberPrefix":"E","accessionYear":2022,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-19","recordCreationDate":"2022-04-26","availableToBook":false}}