Directed by Sadie Frost

You don’t need to know much about Mary Quant before Quant, but there might be some extra-curricular research of interest to truly grasp the life she lived after this sporadic biography.

Quant retells her life, a revolutionary fashion designer from Britain who helped bring in a looser look for women with her embrace of the miniskirt. The debate over whether she invented the latter is a good hook to draw the audience in, but as the narrative skims through the eventual over-commercialisation and late career, many other questions are left malnourished.

In focusing on Quant’s impact, director Sadie Frost equal-part balances personal development, love, and confidence. It’s primarily told through old clips intermixed with new interviews of people who were close to her. A majority of the runtime embellishes the swingin’ sixties, which could be considered her peak. There’s an analysis of business’ impacts and limits on the creative process of an artist.

However, there was a superficiality which set in when Frost opted to gloss over Quant’s commercialisation. This missed a golden opportunity to delve into the legacy passed left by Quant, who could be defined as a sell-out – as suggested when she began releasing bedsheets. As one interviewee said: ‘by today’s standards she may have gone too far’, but that doesn’t satisfy the curiosity piqued when we discover that Quant also designed a range of clothes for dolls.

Separate portions of Quant’s life could warrant their own documentaries, so perhaps this one could’ve benefitted from not trying to tackle the entire timeline. Then again, Frost’s coverage of the late-80’s and into the 90’s might’ve felt shallow because Quant herself was becoming shallow – but I don’t think that’s the angle Frost was going for.

All in all, it’s a fascinating story that I’d like to see better told. While not all the questions I had were answered, the coverage was zealous. It felt as though this was a celebration rather than an exploration of the person and her journey. It’s a major loss that Frost wasn’t able to book an interview with the biography’s namesake, who could have surmised everything in her own words.

What Frost chose to do instead was perplexing. Instead of either including Quant or sticking to recorded clips from the archives, she hired a lookalike actor who danced around a bright room. The ultra-4K scenes which this lookalike appeared in were distracting at best, and detractive at worst. Whereas the interviews from the 60’s provided an interesting look into the mood of the era, modern-day footage of someone dancing around a room doesn’t exactly provide the same satisfaction.

Another detraction was that by the time credits roll a dozen-or-so people were interviewed, and some had questionable credentials. There was one particular ‘fashion designer’, as his by-line labelled him, who appeared for two lines before vanishing without another thought. Did his thoughts add anything? Not in my opinion.

While the narrative became distracted, its tender soul alongside Frost’s buckets of love never let up. Quant is a good starting point, but it fails to figure out Mary Quant’s true legacy.

Quant is showing in selected cinemas across Australia from May 18th.

Moviedoc thanks Vendetta Films and TM Publicity for the invite to the screening of this film.

Reviewed by Zak Wheeler for Moviedoc

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