John Bates - The Avengers collection

John Bates, designed under the name Jean Varon from the 1960s to the 1980s. In 1959, Bates set up the Jean Varon label. Whether he invented the miniskirt or whether it was blowing in the wind for sensitives like him and Courrèges and Quant to pluck out simultaneously, Bates was probably the most influential designer of the 1960s. He dressed Diana Rigg in The Avengers, and that alone affords him iconic status among fashion historians and fans of forceful women and slick fabrics. The Avengers collection was designed by John Bates and eleven fashion retailers, who worked under licence to Jean Varon to ensure that the outfits were in the shops when the first series of The Avengers, starring Diana Rigg as Emma Peel, screened in October 1965.