The British adored her, the fashion world adored her. Calling her only provocative would be an understatement. Because Vivienne Westwood, the lady of British fashion, who passed away today at the age of 81, was much more. Her unique voice in the panorama of world fashion, godmother of punk aesthetics, it was enough to mention her name to understand how much she was loved at home and beyond. In over 60 years of career, the designer has given all of herself in her commitment to support civil and environmental causes, becoming a true green icon, going beyond the boundaries of fashion. Vivienne had been ill for some time but she has always lived discreetly, away from the spotlight, alongside her lifelong partner, Andreas Kronthaler, who has been designing the label for some years.
Vivienne Isabel Swire was born on April 8, 1841, in a Derbyshire village. After moving with her parents to London in 1958, she studied fashion and jewelery at the Harrow School of Art, which she dropped out after a year. In the same period she begins to create jewels that she sells on the stalls of Portobello Road. She decides to become a teacher and in 1962 she marries Derek Westwood, from whom she takes her surname, making the ceremony dress by herself. Her life changes dramatically when she meets Malcolm McLaren, the inventor of the Sex Pistols. The two soon become inseparable, lovers, life and work partners. Malcom is the visionary, Vivienne transforms her ideas into reality. In 1967 their son Joseph was born, and in 1971 the two began to see their clothes and records in a shop in King’s Road which over time changed various names: from ‘Let it Rock’ to ‘Too Fast to Live Too Young to Die ‘, in 1974 turns into the iconic ‘Sex’.
Subsequently, the boutique will be ‘Seditionaries’ and finally ‘World’s End’, known for the famous sign that spins upside down. Tattered T-shirts held together by safety pins or with explicit images, political slogans, become the manifesto of a whole generation and explode when they are consecrated as the official uniform of the Sex Pistols. The rest is history. In the 80s, Vivienne explored all eras on the catwalk, proposing elements buried in the past and modernizing them, such as the corset, the crinoline, which is renamed ‘mini-crini’ due to its small size and faux cul. These were the years of the iconic Savages, Punkature and Buffalo collections, which projected her onto the world fashion scene.
Vivienne is not only punk and provocative: long skirts, tartan, mini-kilts, pearls, tweed dresses, lingerie worn over dresses with long trains and platform shoes and vertiginous shoes soon become her signature . You ask Naomi Campbell, who in 1992 falls disastrously on the catwalk because of a pair of blue faux crocodile leather shoes with a 30cm platform. Fans, stylists, insiders of hers: everyone cites her as an influence, resisting her is impossible. Even Queen Elizabeth awarded her the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1992 for his work in the fashion industry. Vivienne doesn’t bat an eyelid: she shows up in front of the cameras in a gray skirt and does the cartwheel showing everyone that she’s not wearing underwear.
During a fashion course in Vienna she meets Andreas Kronthaler, who is 25 years younger than her and marries him in 1992. Not only a life partner, Andreas takes over the reins of the brand while Vivienne embraces the environmental cause. And it is that the designer will spend the last years of her life becoming the international symbol of the fight against Climate Change and ‘Buy less, buy better’, the forerunner of sustainable and conscious fashion. His commitment also concerns the world of civil rights and politics: always close to Julian Assange, not only does she dedicate a fashion show to him but in 2020 she demonstrates against the extradition of the Wikileaks founder by locking herself in a cage and dressing in yellow like a canary.
In her career she obtained countless honors, among the most important, in 2005, the title of officer of the British Empire while the following year she became a lady commander of the British Empire. In recent years, her name has made a comeback among the very young: the globe pearl chocker continues to be a bestseller around the world and a volume has recently been released that celebrates its history with all the fashion shows. With her disappearance, the United Kingdom loses another queen, the world of fashion an icon. (by Federica Mochi)
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