The Swinging Sixties is slowly taking over the Bendigo Art Gallery.
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Mary Quant: Fashion Revolutionary will open on March 20 as gallery staff spend the next two weeks finalising the exhibition.
On loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, curators have faced the challenge of unpacking the exhibition without V&A staff to assist.
Bendigo Art Gallery curator Emma Busowski Cox said it has been an intense period but it was a fun subject to take on.
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"We havent been able to have anyone from the V&A on site," she said. "Nobody has been able to come out, so we have done everything virtually.
"They're a great team to work with and we're in touch with them every day but it's such a fun subject to work with, with some many great garments.
"The Bendigo Art Gallery has got a strong history in presenting high quality fashion and textile exhibitions and we are thrilled to work with the V&A to present this show. It was their most poplar fashion exhibition ever and that's the spirt of Mary Quant - fashion for everyone."
Bendigo Art Gallery senior registrar of collections and loans Sarah Brown said it was exciting to unpack the exhibition after delays due to the coronavirus.
"We're thrilled to have this on site. It's a very nostalgic show based on the materials we have which is a lot of polyesters, PVCs, synthetics, wool and some lovely patterns and designs.
"It will be a fun experience for people after a difficult year. (The show) is full of colour, life and joy and from pivotal moment in history that a lot of people still remember because they lived it.
"I think it is a joyful exhibition about an amazing designer who transformed the story of fashion history."
Ms Busowski Cox said she hopes people from all over the country will visit the Mary Quant exhibition given the popularity of her designs in Australia.
"Mary Quant garments and cosmetics were widely available through Australia, so we are hoping people will come from all over," she said.
"The show spans 1955 to 1975, which was Mary Quant's heyday, but 1966 is the centre-point of the exhibition. You can see evolution of the hemline in mini skirt, some amazing materials that had never been used in fashion before and some very radical designs for their time."
Already on display is rainwear designed by Mary Quant in a collaboration with Alligator. From 1967, the colourful PVC designs were designed by Quant with Alligator helping mass produce them.
"Mary Quant had discovered this fabric called PVC and fell in love with it and created suite of raincoats in these amazing colours," Ms Busowski Cox said. "She ran into trouble having them mass produced because it wasn't a traditional fabric.
"She later collaborated with the existing Alligator company to iron out those problems and produce these for the mass market."
Ms Brown said the original garments had held up quite well since the 1960s when some pieces were part of people's wardrobe.
"A lot of them hold up quite well thanks to their synthetic nature," she said. "The biggest issue with conserving these types of works is colour fade.
"These garments have been used and worn by regular, everyday people and that story within the garment is quite lovely, we want to show that. So when you see a crease or stain, it tells us about the history and life of the object as well as the designer herself."
Mary Quant: Fashion Revolutionary is on from March 20 to July 11 at Bendigo Art Gallery.
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