The icon, now known to almost everyone with even a passing interest in art, was born on April 8, 1941, in the British town of Tintwistle as Vivienne Isabel Swire. Her mother worked in a cotton factory, and her father was a shoemaker. Vivienne attended grammar school, and when her family moved to London when she was seventeen, she enrolled in the Harrow School of Art to study art. However, she left school after just one semester, later studied education, and even taught for a few years. During this time, she started making and selling her own jewelry.
Father the cactus and mother the breadwinner
In 1962, she married Derek Westwood, and a year later, their son Benjamin was born. However, Vivienne didn't find fulfillment in the marriage, and when she met art student Malcolm Edwards in 1966, it was love at first sight, and her marriage to Westwood ended. The young artist, who eventually changed his surname to McLaren, introduced her to the fascinating world of art. They married in 1967, and Vivienne gave birth to her second son, Joseph Corré. Later, it became clear that Malcolm, one of the future key figures of the punk subculture, was a terrible father. He even forbade his son from calling him dad, raising him to believe that his father was a cactus! McLaren was unemployed at the time, and it was the teacher Vivienne who supported the family.
Too fast to live
In 1971, McLaren finally got off the proverbial couch and opened the “Let it Rock” boutique in London. The hippie movement was fading, replaced by punk, a kind of reaction against bourgeoisie and conservatism. After the naive ambitions of the hippies to save the world with love and peace, an anarchistic generation was growing up, rebelling against politics and the mainstream. McLaren and Vivienne sold clothes inspired by rock’n’roll in the boutique, later renaming it “Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die.” At that time, Malcolm suggested that Vivienne could start sewing the clothes herself to get rid of external suppliers.
Street influence
A few years later, they renamed the boutique “Sex” and started selling clothing and accessories with fetishistic and sado-masochistic themes. Latex outfits, bondage tools, chains, collars, and handcuffs were flying off the shelves. While not exactly a sex shop, the provocative style was still quite unique. Their t-shirts with outrageous slogans, defacing symbols, and colorfully sewn holes, chains, and studs garnered many fans. Vivienne was inspired by the street and, at the same time, influenced and transformed it through her work.
The grandmother of punk
In 1974, the dominant Malcolm went to New York for several months, giving his enterprising wife the freedom to realize her ideas without restrictions. When her husband returned, he founded the legendary band Sex Pistols, and Vivienne became their in-house fashion designer. The iconic band made her bold designs famous, and fans started dressing the same way. The boutique became a key center of punk, and Vivienne earned the nickname “mother of punk,” later evolving into the “grandmother of punk.”
New beginnings
After the boutique was once again renamed - this time dubbed “World’s End” - in 1980, and Vivienne began creating designs influenced by the New Romantic, the relationship between the two artists began to fade. Vivienne later became independent and, at forty years old, launched her first solo collection “Pirate” in London, which was a success on the catwalks. She then went to Paris and Milan, where she was on the verge of securing a deal with Armani. However, McLaren, asserting ownership over the brand, attempted to block her progress through legal channels, causing the agreement to fall through. Thus, Vivienne returned to England as poor as a church mouse and had to start over.
Royal recognition
She borrowed money from her mother to buy sewing machines and got to work. In 1987, she launched a collection inspired by Queen Elizabeth, humorously combining classic British materials like tweed, Scottish tartan, and wool with sweaters so loosely knit that they were almost transparent. In the end, Elizabeth awarded her a title of nobility for her contribution to fashion. “Every woman has the right to feel like a queen,” Vivienne said.
Chaos or art?
When she won the Designer of the Year title in 1990, many critics still didn't see her fashion as art, but as chaos. Yet, a year later, she won the same title again, silencing her detractors. Shortly after, she went to Vienna to lecture at an avant-garde art school, where she met fashion designer Andreas Kronthaler, who was nearly twenty-five years younger. He came to London to visit her, and the artist found herself in her third marriage. Since 2006, Andreas had his own product line within the Vivienne Westwood brand, but it was, of course, much more subdued. “I’m not the one standing on the barricades,” he remarked at the time.
It‘s not just about clothes
Vivienne Westwood never presented her designs as mere clothing; through her work, she expressed opinions and provoked thought. “People have never dressed as poorly as they do today. We are so conformist; no one thinks anymore. It used to be much better,” she would say. The public and experts saw her not just as a fashion designer, but primarily as an artist. To this day, her clothing is part of collections in nearly all renowned museums around the world.
An activist through and through
Alongside her artistic work, she was also an activist. She designed t-shirts for the organization Liberty, with the slogan “I am not a terrorist, please don’t arrest me.” The proceeds went to a human rights organization. She was also involved in Greenpeace and tried to raise awareness about fashion sustainability.
Clothes with a story
Until the end of her life, she managed to maintain a massive fashion empire while being tirelessly provocative and fighting against commercialism and conformity. She had long since moved on from punk, but her work retained its postmodern edge. She had a unique ability to mix materials and styles like no other. “My clothes tell a story. They have identity. They have character and meaning. That’s why they become classics; they keep telling that story. They just keep telling it.” The artist and British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood passed away on December 29, 2022, at the age of 81.
A model at Viviene Westwood‘s show at the Milan Fashion Week Menswear Fall/ Winter 2016/17.
