Vivienne Westwood, Britain’s Provocative Dame of Fashion, Dead at 81

In this file photo taken on June 19, 2011 British designer Vivienne Westwood acknowledges the audience at the end of the Vivienne Westwood Spring-Summer 2012 Menswear collection during the Men's fashion week in Milan. (AFP)
In this file photo taken on June 19, 2011 British designer Vivienne Westwood acknowledges the audience at the end of the Vivienne Westwood Spring-Summer 2012 Menswear collection during the Men's fashion week in Milan. (AFP)
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Vivienne Westwood, Britain’s Provocative Dame of Fashion, Dead at 81

In this file photo taken on June 19, 2011 British designer Vivienne Westwood acknowledges the audience at the end of the Vivienne Westwood Spring-Summer 2012 Menswear collection during the Men's fashion week in Milan. (AFP)
In this file photo taken on June 19, 2011 British designer Vivienne Westwood acknowledges the audience at the end of the Vivienne Westwood Spring-Summer 2012 Menswear collection during the Men's fashion week in Milan. (AFP)

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.

"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 recognizable 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" and "Seditionaries", among other names.

They used prints of swastikas and, perhaps most well-known, an image of the queen with a safety pin through her lips. Favorite 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."



Going Green? British Fashion Struggles with Sustainability

Models present creations for the Bora Aksu catwalk show at London Fashion Week in London, Britain, 13 September 2024. (EPA)
Models present creations for the Bora Aksu catwalk show at London Fashion Week in London, Britain, 13 September 2024. (EPA)
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Going Green? British Fashion Struggles with Sustainability

Models present creations for the Bora Aksu catwalk show at London Fashion Week in London, Britain, 13 September 2024. (EPA)
Models present creations for the Bora Aksu catwalk show at London Fashion Week in London, Britain, 13 September 2024. (EPA)

In an industrial underground space in central London, models in contrasting period dresses and playful streetwear strutted down a brightly lit London Fashion Week (LFW) runway.

But unlike most other shows, all the floral dresses, trending workwear and double-denim outfits were second hand at the event by charity Oxfam and online used clothes retailer Vinted's "Style for Change".

Bay Garnett, a sustainable fashion pioneer who picked out the pieces from Oxfam's warehouses, called the runway "really exciting".

"When we first did this show eight years ago, it was really not like this," Garnett told AFP backstage, noting the stream of enthusiastic attendees.

Despite the excitement surrounding the Oxfam show alongside another "pre-loved" runway by online auction site eBay, British fashion is struggling with sustainability.

Around 44 percent of all British companies overall have put in place a structured climate action plan, according to insurance company Aviva's "Climate-Ready Index".

By contrast, the fashion world is lagging sorely behind, a situation the Collective Fashion Justice (CFJ) charity said was "an embarrassment".

A recent CFJ report found that just seven of the 206 members of the British Fashion Council (BFC), which organizes London Fashion Week, had set out targets to reduce their carbon emissions.

And only five of these -- or less than 2.5 percent -- had goals aligned with the 2016 Paris Agreement to cut global warming, CFJ said.

The UK is the third largest footwear and clothing market in the world, after China and the United States, according to analysis by the Fashion United platform.

A 2018 report from sustainability consultancy Quantis said the sectors account for around eight percent of planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions.

- Go big or go green? -

Luxury fashion giant Burberry -- a LFW veteran -- is one of the handful of brands publishing scientific targets.

Known for its tartan branding, the fashion house recently raised its emission reduction goals and hopes to be carbon neutral by 2040.

But BFC chief executive Caroline Rush said: "To set carbon reduction targets, you need a team to be able to measure your targets, understand how to reduce them and then report on them."

"For a small business that's quite a challenge."

To help, the BFC now has some 50 businesses that will go through its "low carbon transition" program for designers.

Ideally, advocates say the program should be extended to help brands monitor and report their carbon reduction plans.

Copenhagen Fashion Week has taken its own step to require all brands involved to meet a series of environmental goals.

In the United States, reform could come with a "Fashion Act" under consideration by the New York authorities, which would legally require businesses to cut emissions and take into account those of their entire supply chains.

"I think a lot of the issue is (that) the fashion industry can try to handball its problems to other industries," said CFJ director Emma Hakansson.

She explained that while there are many discussions on the climate impact of the meat industry for example, there wasn't the same pressure on producers of such materials as leather, wool and cashmere.

And yet the latter "are coming from the same supply chains", which use large quantities of water and emit methane.

- Textile waste -

There are a number of solutions to make fashion "greener", some of which will be on display at London Fashion Week.

Designer Ray Chu has created a vegan leather made using recycled tea leaves while Romanian designer Ancuta Sarca uses recycled materials in her footwear collections.

But such innovations could struggle to keep up with the scale of emissions and textile waste.

Some 300 tons of clothes are binned every year in the UK, according to a 2020 British parliament report.

Since then, the popularity of fast fashion brands like H&M and Zara, and ultra-fast fashion brands like Shein and Temu, has only grown.

Such brands sell cheaply made, mass-manufactured clothes at breakneck speeds, only for them to fall apart or be discarded after being worn a few times.

While many brands are turning to recycled materials, or offering clothing repair or rental services, the long-term solution seems to be to "slow down our habits of consumption in general", said Hakansson.

To help with this, people could work towards "cultivating a sense of personal style", she suggested.

"If you don't know what you as an individual like, then you're much more likely to follow these micro trends that are being really pushed on us very hard," Hakansson added.

With greater awareness of the challenges posed by climate change, shopping second-hand has become more popularity, noted Garnett.

"The kids have basically got the idea that... second hand -- it's a cool way to shop. By finding your own style, a one-off piece, it (becomes) like a style choice."