NEW DELHI, April 17 -- Just heard that Mary Quant, the British designer who revolutionized fashion with her mini-skirt, is dead. Rest in peace Mary, because it's not about what you did in uncovering those feminine legs I'm going to write about, but why you did it.

Quant brought in her concept of the mini-skirt when women in England were feeling suffocated, dressed in the corseted clothes of their mothers, with their nipped waists, and ship-prow chests, corsets, bonnets, top hats, bustles and petticoats. And with women corseted, bonneted, and top-hatted, nobody ever really knew what the actual woman was inside.

Then came Mary Quant, who turned the world of women upside down by literally saying, "Reveal your true self, don't hide behind a...