Dame Mary was one of the most noteworthy fashion designers of the 20^th Century and is held in the same admiration as Dior and Chanel.

Her thigh-skimming super-short hemlines was a world-wide fashion phenomenon which stretched across from London, New York to Tokyo, and which we have not seen since in modern day fashion history.

In 1955 she opened a small boutique Bazaar which sold clothes and accessories and soon became a hot spot for young people and artists. Located in London’s Chelsea district, it soon attracted celebrities such as the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Brigitte Bardot and Audrey Hepburn.

Some say she freed women’s legs as it also was a time when young women no longer wanted to dress like their mothers and with more young women working, they had money to spend for themselves.

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It has been reported that she used a 12-inch ruler for her early miniskirt lengths and said it was a “feeling of freedom and liberation.” As her miniskirt designs allowed young women to move, jump and just have fun.

As a fashion designer, she introduced us to polka dots, geometric designs, and contrasting colours and new fabrics such as PVC, and stretch textiles for a modern and playful vibe.

She showcased her designs with models in provocative window displays overlooking Kings Road which became a live runway show that drew thousands of young British women and became the source of images for international audiences such as American TIME magazine.

In her 1966 Book Quant by Quant, she recalled that city gents in bowler hats beat on her windows with their umbrella while shouting ‘immoral’ and ‘disgusting’ at the look of tights over miniskirts. Even Coco Chanel dismissed the mini skirt as ‘just awful’ as exposed knees was un-lady like.

Dame Mary Quant fashion legend took her designs from the catwalk to the street with stylish, fun and affordable clothes. She challenged the European designer establishment by creating a liberating fashion trend for women across the globe.

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With a weight of 287.42 carats, the Tiffany Diamond is one of the largest yellow diamonds ever discovered. Unearthed in South Africa in 1877, Charles Lewis Tiffany purchased the stone a year later for US$18,000 and sent it to Paris where it was cut into a cushion shaped 128.54 carat diamond with 82 facets measuring slightly over the width of a $2 Canadian coin.

The finished product, which was the centrepiece for Tiffany & Co.’s exhibit at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exhibition in 1893, is memorizing. It emits a scintillating pure yellow light like that of an early morning sun and is currently mounted on an astonishing platinum necklace with an additional 120 carats of white diamonds.

The necklace on display in Vancouver is not the one found on Audrey Hepburn in the movie publicity photos from 1961. The diamond was remounted into the current necklace for Tiffany’s 175th Anniversary in 2012. Though it has known several mounts in its lifetime, the diamond has rarely been worn. Throughout its entire history, the only woman other than Hepburn to have worn the Tiffany Diamond was Mrs. Sheldon Whitehouse at the 1957 Tiffany Ball in Newport.

As the diamond represents Tiffany & Co.’s legendary brand, it will never be sold. But in 1972 Tiffany did place a cheeky advertisement in the New York Times offering it for sale for $5 million – about $25.8 million today – for 24 hours. No one took them up on the offer.

For many years, the Tiffany Diamond has welcome visitors to the company’s New York flagship store on 5^th Ave in Manhattan. It has been displayed at the Smithsonian Natural Museum in Washington, D.C. and toured Europe and Asia. But this is the icon’s first visit to Canada. Christmas shoppers are invited to view this astonishing diamond which is located in it’s own display case on the ground floor of Tiffany & Co. Vancouver until the end of the year. So movie buffs, history lovers, and bling connoisseurs, hurry down to Burrard Street for this dazzling stone’s Canadian debut.

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