Vivienne Westwood
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My latest newsletter is a very delayed homage to the late, great fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. You can also check out my Instagram photo essay on Westwood here.
Happy reading <3
Vivienne Westwood: Fashion and Activism
Vivienne Westwood helped form the aesthetics of British punk. Throughout the 1970s, she designed clothes for the boutique that she ran with then boyfriend Malcom McCluren. SEX boutique, as it was named in the late 1970s, featured bondage wear, mohair jumpers, and ripped graphic tees reattached with safety pins. Often these tees prominently displayed swastikas for shock value, though eventually Westwood rejected the Nazi aesthetic. The point was to be provocative and, unfortunately, early punk fashion embraced antisemitic imagery just to piss off their elders.
Westwood’s style was always provocative and confrontational, making it a perfect fit for the punk aesthetic. Chrissie Hynde (lead singer of Pretenders) even said: ““I don’t think punk would have happened without Vivienne and Malcolm.” What we think of as a signature punk look today is in huge part because of Vivienne Westwood. She has always been a rebel designer, existing in both the fashion and activist world.
One of Westwood’s hallmark pieces were her corsets, one famously depicting François Boucher's 1743 painting of Daphnis and Chloe printed on the front panel.
Her “Super Elevated Gillie” platform heels were made famous after Naomi Campbell fell while wearing the shoes on the runway for Westwood’s 1993 Anglomania collection. The Louis heel of the shoe was 12 inches…12.
Westwood was also well known for her mini-crinis, a combination of Victorian crinoline (or petticoat) and miniskirts.
Whether worn on the runway or by local British punks, Westwood’s clothes have always been artifacts of counterculture and aesthetic rebellion. But how can fashion even be rebellious or socially conscious? Doesn’t the fashion industry reinforce toxic beauty standards while furthering empowering capitalist enterprises that are destroying our planet?
Well yes and no.
Fashion and the fashion industry are two separate things: the former broadly referring to a style of dress and the latter being the institution that influences style of dress for profit. Westwood may be of both worlds but she is also someone who has constantly tried to change the fashion industry from within. As an ambassador for Greenpeace, she was a devout climate change activist, promoting her message through her runway shows.
The Vivienne Westwood website also features a section on sustainability:
“We know there is a contradiction between our activism and the industry we are part of. Fashion creates products which are too often disposable, and which – through their creation, distribution and eventual disposal – can have a disproportionately negative impact on our planet, its wildlife and people.
We know this and we know we must do better. We have been adapting the way we make our clothes and accessories over the last few years to reflect the growing urgency to change how the industry operates but, in this time of climate crisis, we must go further.”
As Westwood has said herself: ““I’m a fashion designer and an activist…each help the other…[I]t’s very very important to look great if you want to make a point because then people… will listen to you more.”
Vivenne Westwood was a fashion activist, a term coined by designer and activist Céline Semaan Vernon. As Semaan Vernon describes it: “fashion creates culture, and culture creates action.”
Fashion brands must continue to advocate for sustainability while actively investing in ethically sourced materials from fair labor practices to regenerative agriculture. Vivienne Westwood clearly did more for the environment than so many others in the industry. She was a game changer who used clothes to challenge the status quo.
So the next time you’re deciding on an outfit think WWVWD: what would Vivienne Westwood do? She would probably tear the top and add several more inches to the heel. And that’s super punk rock.
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