Mary Quant’s designs in the early 1960s often used heavy checked wools and tweeds, taking traditional fabrics sometimes associated with menswear and using them for modern, streamlined dresses for women. She worked with the exaggerated scale of this checked wool coating, placing the bold pattern to emphasise the vertical lines of the body. It is enlivened with quirky, large military style frogging applied at the centre front, exemplifying the irreverent ‘camp’ humour of Quant fashion. This object has additional significance as an example of a coat-dress, a formal garment-type which has now effectively fallen out of use but was ideal for formal out-door occasions and events in chilly buildings before the advent of widespread central heating.