When it comes to opinions on fashion everyone has one, but when it comes to deciding what the very best year there’s only one group to ask: the women of a certain age who have see it all and worn it all.

That’s exactly what we did for 50+ online retailer isme.com, inviting women over 50 who’ve lived through flower power, punk and shoulder pads and have the benefit of hindsight to ask them about their wardrobe highs and lows. According to the findings 1965, the year Mary Quant launched the mini-skirt, was the most important and with the most influential woman on the way they’ve dressed – with the Twiggy, Princess Diana and Farrah Fawcett clinging on her mini-coattails.

The Daily Star gave half a page at the front of their paper to the story, while other media led on another key finding that the shell suit was identified as the most tragic item women (and Jimmy Saville) have worn in the last 50 years with a DPS in the Daily Mirror and big pieces in The Sun, Mail Online, Daily Mirror, Daily Record, G2 in The Guardian, Belfast Telegraph, The Times (oh, ok The Times of India for all you pedants – but that’s a lot of reach, kids!) and a helluva lot of social media chatter as people reflected on their shell suit nightmares, reveled in their power dresseing memories and admiration of Mary Quant.