The great Vivienne Westwood received this week the Hall of Fame award at the Scottish Fashion Awards. Today we look back on the amazing profesional career of this fashion prophet that brought punk rock style into the fashion statement, building up the punk look as we know it.
Photo by Tim Walker for British Vogue 2009
The great Vivienne Westwood received this week the Hall of Fame award at the Scottish Fashion Awards. Today we look back on the amazing profesional career of this fashion prophet that brought punk rock style into the fashion statement, building up the punk look as we know it.
Photo of SEX boutique and it’s owners, Malcolm McLaren & Vivienne Westwood. Image: D.R.
In the 70s, Vivienne and his partner Malcolm McLaren set up a boutique in the middle of King’s Road called Sex, a name that certainly cried out the style it stood for. There they sold all types of revival items and 50s rock cds, but more importantly, the boutique spurred the fashion scene. Against the pop colours of the ‘Swinging London’ and the revival of Art-Deco, the new store emerged as the ‘anti-fashion’ boutique.
Malcolm McLaren & Vivienne Westwood’s boutique on King’s Road, Chelsea.
Perhaps as a symbol of this style’s permanent need to change and reinvent itself, the boutique continued changing its name: Let It Rock, Too Fast Too Young To Die, Seditionaries, World’s End…
Leather jackets, sado-masochistic style uniforms, pop culture from the 50s, chains, obscene t-shirts, humour…McLaren and Westwood actually had problems with the authorities just because of their image. The punk culture was emerging, and along came Glam-Rock with David Bowie and T. Rex to crank it up a notch. Suddenly, the word ‘bisexual’ didn’t sound as defiant as before.
April 12, 1977, London, Vivienne Westwood (in plaid). Image by © Condé Nast Archive/Corbis // 1978, Sex Pistols’ singer Johnny Rotten on stage performing. Image by © Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis
The Sex Pistols, whom Vivianne and McLaren dressed, became the aesthetic-musical icon of the movement. This among other ingredients led to something outstanding: a style that was anti-fashion ended up in magazine covers all over the world and Paris and New York catwalks.
Vivienne Westwood’s a/w collection.Photos: PA/Getty Images
In 1983, Vivienne and McLaren separated and she started to design on her own. Her designs and iconic t-shirts have become high-end must have items and her influence in the fashion world of the past 30 years is unquestionable.
Vivienne Westwood wearing a “Destroy” muslin T-shirt Designed by Malcolm McLaren and Westwood, 1977 Source: V & A
Never shy of controversy, she has many times stated her view on current society’s style: “People have never looked so ugly as they do today, regarding their dress,” she told journalists in a recent event. “We are so conformist, nobody is thinking. I’m a fashion designer and people think ‘what do I know?’ but I’m talking about all this disposable crap. So I’m saying buy less, choose well, make it last…in history people dressed much better than we do. If you saw Queen Elizabeth it would be amazing, she came from another planet. She was so attractive in what she was wearing.”
Vivienne Westwood wearing her plastic store bag as a plastic rainhood, 1994.