<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p>\nArriving at Vivienne Westwood\u2019s Battersea studio, a non-descript grey building behind a wire fence, I recall our first meeting in 1977. She was the Queen of Punk and I was a snotty first-year student interviewing her for my fanzine. We spent hours chatting about everything from her time as a primary school teacher to her affection for Sid Vicious.
\nOne thing hasn\u2019t changed. From snarling anarchist \u2013 all spiky bleach-job and tartan bondage \u2013 to eccentric national treasure in Harris tweeds and headscarf (knickers optional), Westwood has coolly maintained her sovereign position in British fashion. And, in 2006, was handed a D.B.E. to prove it.<\/p>\n
In the flesh Westwood is indisputably regal. The porcelain white skin and shag of marmalade hair make her look more like Elizabeth I than Blanchett, Mirren, Duff and Dench combined. She even holds herself like a blueblood. I shouldn\u2019t then be surprised to find her husband of 17 years, Andreas Kronthaler, lying at her feet stretched out on a bolt of shiny fabric. It\u2019s almost disappointing to learn that the Kronthaler is not in fact indulging in Sir Walter Raleigh-style prostration. They are discussing the difference between a quilt and a counterpane. <\/p>\n
I am here ostensibly to ask about Westwood\u2019s new World\u2019s End range of designs named for (and on sale at) the iconic shop at 430 King\u2019s Road where punk rock was born. But it\u2019s impossible to spend any time at the court of Dame Vivienne and not be exposed to a passionate barrage of her meditations on the environment, literature, civil liberties and artistic freedom. This is the stuff that makes the post-office manager\u2019s daughter from rural Derbyshire tick. And it\u2019s also the stuff that makes her a complete one-off. \u201cI\u2019ve hijacked the fashion to say what I want to say about everything else,\u201d admits the 68-year-old, with a breathy giggle. \u201cI didn\u2019t do fashion by choice, but it has given me this opportunity to open my mouth: now I\u2019m really trying to do something with the problem with the ecology.\u201d <\/p>\n
Westwood\u2019s office is rammed with dress rails, fabric swatches, sketches and the requisite inspirational photographs and books \u2013 including Jane Arnold\u2019s Patterns For Fashion<\/em>. A cutting table that doubles as her desk is barely visible under piles of rough designs and samples of braids and buttons. The pin-board sports a collage of postcards and portraits: Brigitte Bardot, Naomi Campbell, Edith Sitwell. <\/p>\nA model appears wearing a calico toile. \u201cThat\u2019s lovely with all that thing sticking out in front,\u201d observes Westwood, before sweetly singing her husband\u2019s praises: \u201cAndreas has worked with me for about twenty years and had an incredible influence on the way I work.\u201d She explains how she told him she wanted the dress to fit like an \u201cold granny\u201d and how Kronthaler \u2013 who is 25 years her junior and looks like Johnny Depp\u2019s stand-in from Pirates of the Caribbean<\/em> \u2013 exaggerated the idea. She shows me an askew skirt that he also designed. \u201cHe said he wanted to make it as if the tailor was drunk,\u201d she recalls. \u201cHe\u2019s such a visual person, the lining is more important to him, the way it feels on your body, he\u2019s very good at that.\u201d<\/p>\nWhat does she consider to be her<\/em> gift? \u201cI\u2019m very good at this certain geometry, this certain spatial intelligence. I know I have definitely influenced the way clothes look with my cutting techniques.\u201d The other weapons in Westwood\u2019s formidable armory are her natural intelligence, her overflowing rag-bag of cultural influences, her appetite for knowledge, and her unswerving self-belief. \u201cI do everything for myself,\u201d she says simply, \u201cbut I somehow feel quite sure that people will like it.\u201d<\/p>\nThe World\u2019s End collection is pure Westwood. Her idea is to rework iconic garments from her own archive in leftover fabrics and off-cuts. Quantities will be dictated by what materials are available, creating limited editions by default. \u201cIt\u2019s the nature of what I do,\u201d she explains. \u201cI just don\u2019t like doing amazingly big collections… When I used to have SEX and Seditionaries [earlier incarnations of the King\u2019s Road shop] I never had a sale, we just used to add things. I want to do those muslin T-shirts again and put our prints on them.\u201d Westwood\u2019s early punk T-shirts featured half-naked cowboys and kiddie-porn pin-ups that stuck two fingers up to censorship. Her newer designs are more overtly political, one slogan reading I AM EXPENSIV (\u201cWe\u2019re privileged because we\u2019re subsidised by all the suffering people in the world,\u201d she says), and another I HEART CRAP (\u201cThis is our best selling T-shirt of all time\u201d). Both are also available printed on baby-gros.<\/p>\n
Westwood is frank about the ironies attached to attempting an ethical stance on the environment while working in an industry that demands constant novelty. \u201cThe fact is that people want to buy things\u2026 sometimes even I think I don\u2019t have anything to wear,\u201d she confesses. \u201cI am not a very acquisitive person, but I have to have the best things. Everybody is part of the problem.\u201d She hesitates. \u201cWhat I say is, \u2018Choose well\u2019, because most people just buy lots of rubbish. But that\u2019s very self-serving because people can get something that will last from my shops!\u201d She bemoans the passing of the DIY element that originally fuelled punk fashion: \u201cPeople made things out of bin-liners, that was fantastic. You can take a tablecloth or a bit of beautiful cloth and just tie it round you.\u201d <\/p>\n
With its emphasis on recycling, World\u2019s End is a logical next step for Westwood. In 2005, inspired by the writings of Aldous Huxley \u2013 who, she explains, identified society\u2019s biggest threats as nationalism, organised lying and non-stop distraction \u2013 the designer created her Propaganda collection. Models were draped in protest banners and sported headbands which read Branded. \u201cIf your brain is filled with rubbish, nothing else goes in.\u201d She pauses. \u201cWe\u2019re certainly being lied to at the moment about the ecology; it\u2019s not as simple as taking the C02 out of the air. We are facing the most horrendous things.\u201d There is a tremor in her voice as, after an anti-government diatribe, she cites writer James Lovelock\u2019s apocalyptic thesis: \u201cHe says within a hundred years there will only be one fifth of the world\u2019s population left.\u201d <\/p>\n
With a view to reaching out to a wider public, Westwood subsequently set up her AR \u201cmovement\u201d \u2013 Active Resistance to Propaganda. And, in December 2007, launched the movement\u2019s Manifesto at The Wallace Collection, a tiny London gallery that houses works by Boucher and Watteau, painters who have both inspired Westwood gowns.
\n\u201cYou can\u2019t understand the present if you don\u2019t know something about the past,\u201d she insists. \u201cThe whole thing about the Manifesto is to encourage people to become art lovers, so you get out what you put in. Once you are more in control then you become impervious to propaganda.\u201d On her AR website she lists \u2018Things you can do\u2019 which range from signing up for Prince Charles\u2019 Save The Rainforest petition, to buying tickets for classical music concerts \u201cfor as little as \u00a37\u201d. She also recommends Lovelock\u2019s seminal eco-horror text, The Vanishing Face of Gaia<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s not an easy read,\u201d she admits, \u201cbut persevere.\u201d<\/p>\nHer own voracious appetite for books informs everything: \u201cIf I didn\u2019t read I couldn\u2019t have any interest to do fashion. It\u2019s very important for me to read, for ideas. People come to me who want to be fashion designers and I just say \u2018Follow your deep interest\u2019. People don\u2019t really teach fashion and you\u2019ll just end up looking at magazines.\u201d<\/p>\n
Westwood\u2019s archival designs are as strikingly original today as when they originally hit the streets. \u201cPunk rock, the rubber wear, Buffalo girls or the Mini-Crini, they\u2019ve all got a certain character to them,\u201d she says. \u201cI think my clothes are heroic. They always want to cut a figure and have fun.\u201d <\/p>\n
Today she\u2019s practising what she preaches in a donkey-coloured silk dress that looks not unlike the lining of an overcoat, and a pink mirrored \u2018V\u2019 brooch. She shows me a grey dress that will sell in the store: \u201cIt\u2019s a copy of something I wear all the time with a little cap. I always like the look of an urban guerilla\u2026 and you can do that with badges and things.\u201d Another favourite piece from the new collection is the Alien suit constructed with rectangles for a silhouette that manages at once to be both fitted and slouchy. \u201cI don\u2019t think I could do a better jacket,\u201d she says, stroking the fabric. \u201cI think it would look great on an old grandma. I mean, I can wear it and I\u2019m an old grandma!\u201d <\/p>\n
The conversation suddenly veers off, Westwood-style, on a detour into the past. \u201cI used to sit in bed with bits of fabric and stuff,\u201d she says, a little wistfully. \u201cIt was nicer in a way when I first worked \u2013 even though it was more difficult because I\u2019ve got better at it since. The fact that I used to do everything<\/em> myself, it was very satisfying. Now I can\u2019t always look after my second lines. I still try with my first line but it needs a lot of delegation. Fashion is the most time-consuming part of anything I do, and I\u2019m always trying to squeeze in these other things I want to do.\u201d<\/p>\nAh yes, the other things\u2026 Westwood knows the score. She knows that most people who are passionate about the environment don\u2019t care for fashion. But she is determined that they be shown the light. \u201cThey think it\u2019s wrong\u2026 but I think it\u2019s really great to try and dress up and get engaged with the world,\u201d she says, her eyes twinkling as she warms to her theme. \u201cIf you\u2019re dressed up, then you feel like you\u2019re doing that and you attract other people as well. Those two Geldof girls look good, especially Pixie\u2026 And also Jamie Winston. She came to my show, \u2018So pleased to meet you. Major fan. Can I kneel down?\u2019 sort of thing. And I told them all to come to my Manifesto reading. Peaches started her own magazine. I just thought if you are dead serious about this then really start putting a bit more in\u2026 I haven\u2019t heard any more from them since.\u201d She dispatches her critics with a queenly shrug: \u201cA lot of people apparently said, \u2018Oh, Vivienne\u2019s just saying all of this because she wants to sell us this T-Shirt\u2019. But if that\u2019s what they want to think well that\u2019s too bad. Buy the T-shirt anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n
Photography: Simon Thiselton
\nFashion: Grace Cobb
\nWords: Iain R Webb<\/p>\n
A full version of this article first appeared in<\/em> Wonderland #18, Apr\/May 2009<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vivienne Westwood talks heroic clothes, urban guerillas and the apocalypse with Iain R. Webb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9418],"tags":[100,106,121,50,199,187,205],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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