Mary Quant the late designer who made the miniskirt all the rage named the fashion item afte

• Mary Quant, the British designer credited with popularizing the miniskirt, died on Thursday aged 93.
• Quant, whose clothing was beloved by models like Twiggy, named the item after her favorite car. 
• Though it's believed a French designer invented miniskirts, Quant brought them to the masses. 

Mary Quant, the late British designer credited with popularizing the miniskirt, named the fashion item after her favorite car: a Mini Cooper. 

Quant died on Thursday aged 93 at her home in Surrey, a county in southeast England. Her family confirmed the death in a statement given to Sky News and released the same day, calling her "one of the most internationally recognized fashion designers of the 20th century and an outstanding innovator of the Swinging Sixties."

Part of the reason why so many regard Quant as an innovator was her ability to make the miniskirt the closet staple it is today.

Though often credited with inventing the clothing item, some actually believe the style should be credited to French designer Andre Courrèges, who introduced minidresses in his 1964 spring/summer collection, a full two years before Quant's designs were released in London, the Associated Press reported.

The discussion of who invented what is ongoing, but there's no question as to the sheer impact of Quant's designs. While Courrèges' designs were popular in Paris, it's Quant who's recognized for making the then-controversial style a global phenomenon.

Quant opened her boutique, Bazaar, on the King's Road in London's Chelsea neighborhood in 1955 at age 21, Vogue reported. The decade that followed saw her tap into the burgeoning trend of shorter hemlines. According to the V&A Museum, Quant dipped her toes into shorter dress designs in the early 1960s before finally coming out with the miniskirt, which she named after her favorite car, in 1966. 

"The mini-car went exactly with the miniskirt; it did everything one wanted, it looked great, it was optimistic, exuberant, young, flirty, it was exactly right," she said in the "Mary Quant, Mini Cooper, Miniskirt" documentary, according to a 2014 BBC report.

The miniskirt was a symbol of youth and sexual liberation, and the clothing item was often worn with equally fun colorful tights and boots.

As a pioneer of daring style, Quant was met with some pushback from conservatives but always defended her designs. When asked whether she considered her designs to be "vulgar" by The Guardian in 1967, Quant said: "But I love vulgarity. Good taste is death, vulgarity is life."

"People call things vulgar when they are new to them. When they have become old they become good taste," she added. "But the critical people, the people who understand fashion, they jump at the new thing, they're excited."

Quant's designs were adopted by many high-profile celebrities and models in the 1960s such as Twiggy and Pattie Boyd, who was married to George Harrison of The Beatles, according to the Associated Press.

Twiggy, whose full name is Lesley Hornby, paid tribute to Quant in an Instagram post on Thursday. In the caption, she wrote that the designer "revolutionised fashion and was a brilliant female entrepreneur."

"The 1960s would have never been the same without her," the model added. 

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