She has left her mark and you can see her truth unravelling before us. She warned us. We must listen
Vivienne started off a punk and ended as a dame, without compromising an inch,” said Helena Bonham Carter of the late British designer at her memorial this February. A true icon of our times, Dame Vivienne Westwood (who died in December 2022, age 81) was more than a designer, activist, punk or dame, she was a free spirit dedicated to her own unique set of guiding principles. Be it through fashion, art or protest, Westwood’s beliefs saw her continually challenge the status quo and few people have left a legacy like hers – from creating the clothes that defined Britain’s punk scene, alongside her then partner Malcolm McLaren in their King’s Road shop; to revolutionising fashion through her extraordinary designs and runway shows, later with her husband Andreas Kronthaler; to using her platform to fight injustices. She set the agenda to her agenda, whatever ideas or cause she found herself inspired by. For many, she was the greatest British designer ever; to others, a trailblazing activist, a shrewd provocateuse.
From an early age Westwood was shocked by the wrongs she saw: “I did feel like I had to be like a knight to stop people doing horrible things to each other” she said, recounting the shock of seeing a crucified Jesus for the first time as a child, in the 2018 documentary Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist. Whether it was simply giving people an opportunity to express their individuality in an age of conformity through her designs, or campaigning on environmental and humanitarian issues, she wanted better for our world and worked tirelessly to do her bit for people and planet. This saw her cosplay as Margaret Thatcher for the cover of Tatler in 1989; receive her OBE in 1992 sans underwear, playfully spinning in her skirt for photographers; pose nude for Juergen Teller at 70; drive a tank to the prime minister’s house in 2015 to campaign against fracking; and even dress as a yellow canary in a cage outside Downing Street in 2020 to protest Julian Assange’s extradition to the US. While her punk spirit fuelled her activism, fashion provided a creative means for Westwood to get her message across.
Westwood’s anti-establishment T-shirts, featuring provocative printed slogans, may have put her and McLaren on the cultural map and led to their prosecution under the 1959 Obscene Publications Act, but this was just the beginning. The Cheshire-born designer used her creativity to embolden people through fashion. “The feeling that runs through my clothes from when I started to now is that they feel very heroic. I think they do make you feel larger than life. I do think that they make you look very important. And, for me, that’s sexy. She’s got clout,” Westwood told Kirsty Wark in a 2004 BBC interview. From the very beginning (the autumn/winter ’81 Pirate collection she and McLaren collaborated on) her collections told stories, they delved into, deconstructed and distorted contemporary trends and traditional ideas to create new narratives. Her signature use of Harris tweed and tartan and historical garments such as the corset and crinoline showed us how history, the old (British fabrics and 18th-century art for inspiration), could be reinvented in ingenious ways.
“One of the things that made Vivienne such an incredible designer is the fact that she was slow. She took her own time in the early days in terms of learning her craft,” says Steven Philip, a devoted, Dundee-born collector who has one of the largest collections of her archive in existence. Westwood’s unorthodox entry into fashion meant she set her own pace and did things her own way. She willed people to “buy less” long before the terrifying effects of the climate crisis made it impossible to ignore. As a woman at the helm of one of the world’s largest independent fashion brands, she was the antidote to fast fashion’s capitalist rat race – she became the blueprint for generations of designers to come. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have fun along the way.
During the 1990s Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Kate Moss all helped bring her visions to life. The models providing some unforgettable runway moments and the designer becoming an inspiring figure and friend in each of their lives. Campbell made fashion history when she fell in Westwood’s towering 12in platform shoes during the autumn/winter ’93 Anglomania show. Evangelista’s most memorable show look came in autumn/winter ’95’s Vive la Cocotte in the form of an incredible bejewelled and feathered gown inspired by the Queen of Sheba. Moss walked topless in a micromini skirt, eating a Magnum ice cream, down spring/summer ’94’s Cafe Society leopard-print carpet. Moss admired the way Westwood used the theatre of fashion to provoke and inspire: “Not only was Vivienne so prolific in fashion, she also brought many important issues to people’s attention. She was radical and inspirational.”
Westwood continued to find many collaborators within and beyond fashion who shared her strong moral stance. Lily Cole became a long-time muse for the designer after they bonded over their deep care for the world. “We worked together several times over the years and all of the different collaborations that we had this kind of punk activist spirit behind them, there was always a message.” One such outing was the 2013 punk-inspired Met Gala which Cole attended wearing a dress made of Amazonian wild rubber designed by Westwood and Kronthaler – a tribute to Chico Mendes, an activist who lost his life fighting to protect the rainforest. Westwood capitalised on the event as an opportunity to raise awareness of the injustices faced by whistleblower Chelsea Manning, holding up an image of the former US soldier emblazoned with the word truth. “Vivienne was the most authentic person that I came across working in fashion,” says Cole. “She was sort of a force of nature that was very powerful and rare to meet. She had very strong moral convictions and it seemed to me that those were her guiding principles, her ways of being. The topics of conversation that she wanted to engage with were on those terms, on moral terms.”
Later in her career Westwood wanted to work with those aligned with her fight. Pamela Anderson, who described them as “kindred spirits who wanted better for the world”, became one of her key collaborators, starring in countless campaigns, often alongside Westwood and Kronthaler. “I loved our shoot in Hydra with Juergen Teller – her walking miles of rickety steps up rocky hills in platform sandals and socks. We shared a house there and it was fun to wake up together, have breakfast, talk about the world, dream…” Anderson remembers Westwood as an artist carrying the weight of the world’s plight in her work. “Vivienne was a true artist – the toughest job in the world, to care so much about the world, be willing to sacrifice all, to tell the story. She has left her mark and as you can see her truth unravelling before us, climate change, the world heating up to the point of uninhabitability, we are climate refugees. She warned us – we must listen.”
Friends, fans, collaborators and critics will have much to say on what Westwood’s legacy is, but, true to form, she had already started carving out how she wanted her work to live on. The Vivienne Foundation, formed in 2019 in collaboration with her sons Ben Westwood and Joseph Corré, aims to raise awareness and fundraise for NGOs aligned with its mission to create a better society and halt climate change. While the designer’s clothes always carried political messages, the foundation was set up to give her a platform to speak directly on the issues and injustices that impassioned her most.
Westwood’s granddaughter Cora Corré worked with her to define the foundation’s four pillars of change: protest capitalism, halt climate change, defend human rights and stop war. “She was trying to conquer the whole world and its issues in one, so I said, ‘Let’s divide them into four pillars that are very clear’.” These were devised based on the way Westwood spoke on them, as a whole, four parts of the same problem. “The four pillars are so inextricably linked because war, climate change and the abuse of human rights are all a result of what my grandma used to refer to as the rotten financial system,” explains Corré. “The idea that the financial system supports war because the banks, ie capitalism, make money out of war. They also make a fortune out of the world’s resources, such as the extraction of oil and minerals, which is totally unsustainable, which loops back to halting climate change. And, obviously, when war is inflicted on another country, you are going against people’s human rights.”
The foundation has partnered with online vintage boutique Byronesque to continue Vivienne’s appeal to “buy less, choose well, make it last”. All the profits from the sale of original 1970s Seditionaries items and pieces from Westwood’s iconic collections will fund the foundation’s four pillars. All Westwood sold by the retailer comes with a certificate of appraisal from its archivists and is held on the Byronesque blockchain, which traces the history and future value of each purchase – aligning with the designer’s call for a slower, more sustainable approach to fashion.
“Her activism really was her real true love and passion in the later years of her life,” says Corré. Westwood was designing a collection for the foundation up until she passed away. An exciting prospect, it won’t be released until the future relationship between the company and the foundation is carefully and strategically mapped out. For Corré, who continues to work closely with Kronthaler, allowing themselves enough time to do this is vital: “Vivienne’s legacy and her beliefs are what I really stand for and that’s within the Vivienne Westwood company too. I want to ensure that those are implemented because I do really believe that’s the future of both the company and the foundation.”
“Buy less, choose well, make it last” may be the message at the forefront of Westwood’s brand, but another maxim she lived by was “If in doubt, dress up. Don’t ever dress down, you’ll be so disappointed.” As she told More Or Less: “The most important thing is to spend time together. Slow down, enjoy every moment, and dress up!” In our uncertain world, her words are more pertinent than ever.
Models: Alys Hunt, Luca Biggs, LJ, Ajus. Casting director: Ben Grimes. Hair: Soichi Inagaki. Make-up: Vassillis Theotokis. Nails: Yuika Yonehara. Photographer’s assistants; Simon Wellington, Liberto Fillo, Reuben Francis, Thomas Carla. Hair assistants: Chikako Shinoda, Kei Takano. Production: Rachel Evans at Block Productions.