A pair of footless fashion tights designed by Mary Quant for the Nylon Hosiery Company in 1968, made of nylon in black, with printed green cardboard packaging.

A pair of footless fashion tights designed by Mary Quant for the Nylon Hosiery Company in 1968, made of nylon in black, 40 deniers. The printed green cardboard packaging is inscribed with the brand, product name (‘Neet Feet’), daisy logo and an illustration of a model wearing the product.

Along with the mini-skirt, colourful, comfortable tights and socks are perhaps Quant’s most significant contribution to fashion. Until the late 1950s, women were limited to fiddly suspender belts and stockings in ‘nude’ colours. Warm pantyhose, the forerunners to tights, were an option in winter, but most women preferred stockings. Quant persuaded the Nylon Hosiery Company, run by the Curry family, first generation immigrants from India, to manufacture her ideas for stockings and tights. Once their partnership with Mary Quant was established, in about 1964, the Curry brothers developed a technique of making long stockings which were joined together at the top, and they were produced as well as stockings in specially dyed bright colours to contrast and co-ordinate with Mary Quant separates. The range expanded with new colours and patterned knits, and from 1966, the effervescent ‘Hi-ball’ glitter stockings in silver, gold, green blue and red. The distinctive Mary Quant packaging, initially in dark green or brown, but later in black, with the daisy logo, continued the consistent brand identity, helping the products to stand out amongst competitors such as Dior and Pretty Polly. The Mary Quant tights were made under licence into the 1980s and proved to be a most enduring product line, with stockings, tights and socks in every length and every possible colour and pattern permu¬tation featured in magazines and available to buy in high streets and department stores. These products were an affordable way of wearing Mary Quant style and were sold worldwide.
The Mary Quant ‘Neet Feet’ footless tights and packaging are part of a larger ensemble of tights and stockings acquired to complete the V&A collection. The V&A currently holds 8 objects representing Mary Quant’s collaboration with the Nylon Hosiery Company. These stockings and tights (acquired in 1983 and 1995) were produced between c.1968 and 1987. The new additions represent an opportunity to include products conceived in the earliest days of the collaboration, as well as showing a wider range of products and packagings, all examples of Mary Quant’s inventiveness.
This object is one of over 35 objects acquired in preparation for the Mary Quant exhibition. These objects have been chosen to show the range of Quant’s designs and chart the development of her career and brand, from 1955 to 1975. Many of them have been acquired as a direct result of the V&A’s call for Mary Quant garments (#WeWantQuant), broadcast as part of the upcoming Mary Quant exhibition. Many have well-documented provenance.

T.8:1, 2-2019