Vivienne Westwood, Britain’s provocative dame of fashion, dead at 81

As the person who dressed the
Sex Pistols, Vivienne Westwood, who died on Thursday at the age
of 81, was synonymous with 1970s punk rock, a rebelliousness
that remained the hallmark of an unapologetically political
designer who became one of British fashion’s biggest names.
“Vivienne Westwood died today, peacefully and surrounded by
her family, in Clapham, South London. The world needs people
like Vivienne to make a change for the better,” her fashion
house said on Twitter.
Climate change, pollution, and her support for WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange were all fodder for protest T-shirts or
banners carried by her models on the runway.
She dressed up as then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher for
a magazine cover in 1989 and drove a white tank near the country
home of a later British leader, David Cameron, to protest
against fracking.
The rebel was inducted into Britain’s establishment in 1992
by Queen Elizabeth who awarded her the Order of the British
Empire medal. But, ever keen to shock, Westwood turned up at
Buckingham Palace without underwear – a fact she proved to
photographers by a revealing twirl of her skirt.
“The only reason I am in fashion is to destroy the word
‘conformity’,” Westwood said in her 2014 biography. “Nothing is
interesting to me unless it’s got that element.”
Instantly recognisable with her orange or white hair,
Westwood first made a name for herself in punk fashion in 1970s
London, dressing the punk rock band that defined the genre.
Together with the Sex Pistols’ manager, Malcolm McLaren, she
defied the hippie trends of the time to sell
rock’n’roll-inspired clothing.
They moved on to torn outfits adorned with chains as well as
latex and fetish pieces that they sold at their shop in London’s
King’s Road variously called “Let It Rock”, “Sex” and
“Seditionaries”, among other names.
They used prints of swastikas, naked breasts and, perhaps
most well-known, an image of the queen with a safety pin through
her lips. Favourite items included sleeveless black T-shirts,
studded, with zips, safety pins or bleached chicken bones.
“There was no punk before me and Malcolm,” Westwood said in
the biography. “And the other thing you should know about punk
too: it was a total blast.”
“BUY LESS”
Born Vivienne Isabel Swire on April 8, 1941 in the English
Midlands town of Glossop, Westwood grew up at a time of
rationing during and after World War Two.
A recycling mentality pervaded her work, and she repeatedly
told fashionistas to “choose well” and “buy less”. From the late
1960s, she lived in a small flat in south London for some 30
years and cycled to work.
When she was a teenager, her parents, a greengrocer and a
cotton weaver, moved the family to north London where she
studied jewellery-making and silversmithing before re-training
as a teacher.
While she taught at a primary school, she met her first
husband, Derek Westwood, marrying him in a homemade dress. Their
son Ben was born in 1963, and the couple divorced in 1966.
Now a single mother, Westwood was selling jewellery on
London’s Portobello Road when she met art student McLaren who
would go on to be her partner romantically and professionally.
They had a son, Joe Corre, co-founder of lingerie brand Agent
Provocateur.
After the Sex Pistols split, the two held their first
catwalk show in 1981, presenting a “new romantic” look of
African-style patterns, buccaneer trousers and sashes.
Westwood, by then in her forties, began to slowly forge her
own path in fashion, eventually separating from McLaren in the
early 1980s.
Often looking to history, her influential designs have
included corsets, Harris Tweed suits and taffeta ballgowns.
Her 1985 “Mini-Crini” line introduced her short puffed skirt
and a more fitted silhouette. Her sky-high platform shoes
garnered worldwide attention in 1993 when model Naomi Campbell
stumbled on the catwalk in a pair.
“My clothes have a story. They have an identity. They have
character and a purpose,” Westwood said.
“That’s why they become classics. Because they keep on
telling a story. They are still telling it.”
The Westwood brand flourished in the 1990s, with
fashionistas flocking to her runway shows in Paris, and stores
opening around the world selling her lines, accessories and
perfumes.
She met her second husband, Andreas Kronthaler, teaching
fashion in Vienna. They married in 1993 and he later became her
creative partner.
Westwood used her public profile to champion issues
including nuclear disarmament and to protest against
anti-terrorism laws and government spending policies that hit
the poor. She held a large “climate revolution” banner at the
2012 Paralympics closing ceremony in London, and frequently
turned her models into catwalk eco-warriors.
“I’ve always had a political agenda,” Westwood told
L’Officiel fashion magazine in 2018.
“I’ve used fashion to challenge the status quo.”