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Hemlines crept ever northward in the '60s, and ground
zero for the shift was designer Mary Quant's London boutique, Bazaar. ''If I didn't make them short enough, the Chelsea girls, who had wonderful legs, would get out the scissors and shorten the skirts themselves,'' she later told the The New York Times. At the time, they were controversial, but clearly the naysayers were ultimately overpowered. Additionally, two of the most popular hues of the Space Age were—appropriately—white and silver, two color trends that were the result of advancements in fabric technology. André Courrèges's signature optical white, for instance, was enabled by the introduction of a new bleach in the late '60s, according to historian Valérie Guillaume.