Iconic Swinging Sixties fashion designer and creator of the mini-skirt died aged 93.
Her family confirmed the legend had ‘died peacefully at home in Surrey, UK this morning’ in a statement shared with the PA News Agency.
It continued: ‘Dame Mary, aged 93, was one of the most internationally recognised Fashion Designers of the 20th Century and an outstanding innovator of the Swinging Sixties.’
‘She opened her first shop Bazaar in the Kings Road in 1955 and her far-sighted and creative talents quickly established a unique contribution to British fashion.’
Dame Mary was one of the most influential figures in the fashion scene of the 1960s and is credited with making fashion accessible to the masses with her sleek, streamlined and vibrant designs.
As hemlines rose throughout the ‘Swinging Sixties’ and society underwent a cultural shift in attitudes around things like sex, Dame Mary was one of the first designers to offer a thigh-high skirt.
Dame Mary famously said: ‘It was the girls on the King’s Road who invented the mini. I was making easy, youthful, simple clothes, in which you could move, in which you could run and jump and we would make them the length the customer wanted. I wore them very short and the customers would say, “Shorter, shorter”.’
Also known for her iconic A-line dresses with Peter Pan collars, coupled with vibrant coloured tights and knee-high boots, Dame Mary’s designs are synonymous with the reign of models like Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton.
Not content to popularise the mini skirt, Dame Mary went on to invent hot pants, diversify into cosmetics and homeware, and design the interior of the Mini Designer.
Born in south-east London on February 11 1930, the trailblazer was the daughter of two Welsh school teachers.
She gained a diploma in the 1950s in art education at Goldsmiths College, where she met her husband Alexander Plunket Greene, who later helped establish her brand.
Dame Mary was taken on as an apprentice to a milliner before making her own clothes and in 1955 opened Bazaar, a boutique on the Kings Road in Chelsea.
For outstanding services to the British fashion industry, Dame Mary was awarded an OBE in 1966 and a DBE in 2015.
