Vivienne Westwood: Remembering the Queen of Punk
On December 29th, 2022, the world lost one of the greatest designers and innovative creators in the fashion industry. Dame Vivienne Westwood was 81 when she passed away peacefully, surrounded by her family in Clapham, South London. Her death was announced by her brand via Instagram, sharing this heartfelt statement, “The world needs people like Vivienne to make a change for the better.”
Vivienne Westwood, born Vivienne Isabel Swire, was born on April 8th, 1941, in Tintwistle, Cheshire, England. Before her impactful venture into fashion, Westwood pursued a career in education and became a school teacher before marrying Derek Westwood in 1962. She taught herself how to sew and even designed her wedding dress. After getting divorced, Westwood met and moved in with Malcolm McLaren, future manager of the punk band the Sex Pistols.
Together they opened and operated Let It Rock, a boutique selling secondhand 1950s vintage clothing along with McLaren’s rock-and-roll record collection. Vivienne produced unique clothing designs based on McLaren’s provocative ideas. They made teddy boy trousers, drape coats, and mohair sweaters. Their customized T-shirts were ripped and embellished with shocking anti-establishment slogans and graphics, and their bondage trousers were selling out quickly in the small boutique. Their punk-fashion boutique, which went through various name changes such as Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die, Sex, and finally Seditionaries, served as a youth fashion mecca.
Their erotically charged image enraged many, including Britain’s press. However, this made Westwood and McLaren more popular, as it was always Westwood's goal to push as many boundaries as possible. “I did not see myself as a fashion designer but as someone who wished to confront the rotten status quo through the way I dressed and dressed others,” Westwood said in her memoir. Westwood and McLaren designed the iconic New Romantic-inspired “Pirate” collection in 1981 together under the World’s End label. This iconic ready-to-wear collection was successful. McLaren and Westwood ended their personal relationship shortly after the collection debuted on the runway. They remained professional partners for an additional five years until Vivienne established her long-awaited identity as an independent designer.
Vivienne’s early shows like “Buffalo Girls” (Nostalgia of Mud) in 1982, and “Anglomania” in 1993 started to change the way a lot of people looked at what fashion was “supposed” to look like. In 1989, Women’s Wear Daily publisher John Fairchild described Westwood as “the Alice in Wonderland of fashion” in his book Chic Savages, and named her one of the six most influential designers of the 20th century.
Besides being one of the most revolutionary fashion designers in history, she is also easily identified as a fashion historian. According to Vogue, some of her designs such as her billowing pirate shirts, 1990s tartan derriere padding, and 1980s mini-crinis were all inspired by 17th-century style, while her Empress Josephine gowns and abundance of corsets originated in the 18th century. The Vivienne Westwood fashion house is also attached to some of the most memorable moments in fashion including the iconic Naomi Campbell crashing down from purple python platforms on the runway for the Fall 1993 show, and a near-naked Kate Moss eating ice cream while wearing a miniskirt, hat, and heels for the Spring 1995 show.
Westwood met her second husband, designer Andreas Kronthaler, in 1989, while she was teaching fashion design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and he was a student. They got married in 1993, and Kronthaler was appointed creative director of the Vivienne Westwood brand. They remained partners until the end.
Westwood was named designer of the year in 1990 and 1991 by the British Fashion Council and was honored for outstanding achievement in fashion at the British Fashion Awards in 2007. She received the Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II in 1992, when she defied conventional fashion norms by wearing no underwear to the ceremony and famously posing and twirling for the paparazzi. In 2006, she was made a dame on Queen Elizabeth II’s New Year’s Honors list.
What made Vivienne Westwood even more special to the industry was her care and concern for climate change. Vivienne Westwood continuously spoke out about the effects of climate change and over-consumption. She was a prominent activist for social, political, and environmental issues. Westwood was never afraid to display her support for any cause she cared about, including sustainability. The Vivienne Westwood brand is considered a pioneer in sustainable fashion. This can be proven by various things, including the fact that they have not used real fur since 2007, according to Haus Von Eden.
In popular culture, Vivienne Westwood has been mentioned and served as an inspiration for many films and TV shows. Famously, the ivory wedding dress that Carrie Bradshaw almost married Mr. Big in the 2008 film Sex and the City was a Vivienne Westwood corseted gown made of silk duchess satin and Radzimir taffeta from the Fall 2007 collection. Vivienne Westwood's designs inspired some of the Oscar-winning costume designs for the 2021 film Cruella.
According to an interview with the Los Angeles Times with Cruella costume designer Jenny Beavan, “She was a very important presence in London. And as you probably know from past interviews, fashion isn’t really my thing, but obviously “Cruella” is a poem about fashion [laughs], and ’70s fashion — so obviously Vivienne Westwood was going to be high up in the research list, along with people like [British fashion label] BodyMap. ... Viv Westwood seemed the perfect, punky designer to be the [basis for] Cruella... She was an inspiration without a doubt.”
Vivienne Westwood will continue to be remembered and appreciated as one of the most powerful voices in fashion through her work on and off the runway. Many of us cannot even say punk fashion without instantly thinking of the iconic looks that Westwood designed throughout her victorious and unforgettable career. She will always be remembered as a pioneer in the fashion industry, but for many of us, she will continue to be recognized as our Queen of Punk.
Vivienne Westwood once said, “It's a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world.”
Vivienne Westwood changed the world.