Fashion designer John Bates. Bates (who worked under the name ...

Fashion designer John Bates. Bates (who worked under the name Jean Varon) was one of the top designers of mod styles. He is one of the people responsible for the development of the miniskirt (along with Mary Quant and André Courrèges), and he is noted for designing high fashion plastic garments as early as 1962. In 1965, Bates designed clothing for Diana Rigg's character Emma Peel on the spy-fi television program The Avengers.