Vivienne Westwood, 1941 - 2022

January 2, 2023 3:45 PM

British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, who first rose to prominence by outfitting the Sex Pistols in the 70s, died Dec 29, 2022.

The often shocking, outrageous, eccentric grande dame of British fashion died at her home in Clapham. She was 82.

Vivienne Westwood, 81, Dies; Brought Provocative Punk Style to High Fashion (NYT gift link)

Vivienne Westwood, a Lifetime of Looks (NYT gift link)

i-Cons: Vivienne Westwood (Interview for iD magazine from 2015)

Vivienne Westwood: punk, new romantic and beyond (V&A retrospective)

previously:

Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s son to burn £5m punk memorabilia

You can "Derelicte" my balls.

posted by maggiemaggie (23 comments total)

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posted by gentlyepigrams at 3:48 PM on January 2, 2023

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posted by Lawn Beaver at 4:34 PM on January 2, 2023

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posted by talking leaf at 4:43 PM on January 2, 2023

I was drafting my own post on Dame Vivienne but I am glad to see this here, thanks maggiemaggie. I hope it's OK for me to post what I was planning.

Dame Vivienne Westwood has died., The Guardian, 29/12/2022

“As a fashion designer I say: buy less clothes. Keep wearing things that you’ve really chosen, that you love, and that is status. It’s not that you have to keep consuming. If you invest in art, if you study yourself, art, you become a freedom fighter immediately because your life changes, you get off the consumer treadmill, you start thinking."

Vivienne Westwood: an appreciation. The Guardian, 30/12/2022

Dame Vivienne Westwood was a very British kind of genius. She was as down to earth as she was flamboyant, a former primary school teacher who came to shape punk culture.

Her clothes were bracingly modern – rips and safety pins, latex and androgyny – but steeped in a love of history. (She had a particular weakness for kilts and corsets.) Her clothes were worn by everyone from Theresa May to Chrissie Hynde, from Princess Eugenie to Pharrell Williams.

She was a rebel, but never without a cause, working tirelessly to raise awareness of the climate emergency many years before it was fashionable.

Vivienne Westwood - tank protest. The Guardian, 11/9/2015.

“Used to sticking two fingers up at the establishment, Vivienne Westwood has driven a tank to David Cameron’s constituency home in a protest against fracking.

The fashion designer took up the position usually reserved for the tank’s gunner on top of the vehicle’s turret as it made its way through Witney to the prime minister’s home in Chadlington, Oxfordshire, to carry out a fake “chemical attack” on Friday."

Glen Matlock - Sex Pistols bass player. The Guardian, 01/01/2023.

"She was one of the first vegetarians I met. Yet when I got chicken, she’d take the bones home to boil and sew on to T-shirts. They’d had the shop less than a year when I turned up and were still trying to work out what they wanted to do. It’s amazing now. There’s a Vivienne Westwood flagship store in Shanghai and go to Harajuku in Tokyo and the girls are dressed in Westwood. From chicken bones to head of a fashion empire: it’s only by sticking out that you get lasting acclaim and to have continual success is hard. She did it. I’m not sure we’ll see the likes of her again."

More images:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2013/nov/30/vivienne-westwood-sexpistols
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-64122710

Sustainability
Buy Less, Choose Well, Make It Last

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posted by Thella at 5:16 PM on January 2, 2023 [14 favorites]

Thella, I was waiting for someone else to post and I just couldn't take it any more! The more links the better, thank you!
posted by maggiemaggie at 5:18 PM on January 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

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posted by hydrobatidae at 6:03 PM on January 2, 2023

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posted by rpfields at 6:22 PM on January 2, 2023

Lucy Sussex wrote on social media: "One thing I recall about V. Westwood was that during the miners' strike she decentralized her sewing to the areas affected by the dispute, so that the strikers' wives could work and earn income."
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:39 PM on January 2, 2023 [17 favorites]

Glad to see this post. She was a true original.

But even though I’m old enough to remember seeing her fashions on people in real life, my favorite look is the one that’s only in my head… from Jennifer Saunders on AbFab: “I'm going down in history, Pats, as the woman that put Princess Anne in a Vivienne Westwood basque.”

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posted by Mchelly at 6:53 PM on January 2, 2023 [7 favorites]

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posted by JoeXIII007 at 6:55 PM on January 2, 2023

I've been waiting days for someone to post this. I didn't want to do it myself, I suck at posting. Thanks maggiemaggie. Vivienne's fashion sense played a major part in who I was in the late 70's and 80's. I'm sorry she's gone.
Vivienne Westwood, Sex Pistols, and the Origins of Punk Fashion

posted by evilDoug at 7:12 PM on January 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

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posted by Joey Michaels at 8:22 PM on January 2, 2023

One of a kind.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 9:37 PM on January 2, 2023

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I also appreciate how she made a point of being old in public, loudly and unapologetically old.
posted by Jilder at 3:07 AM on January 3, 2023 [7 favorites]

Thanks for the inspiration Mchelly.

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posted by ellieBOA at 3:50 AM on January 3, 2023

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posted by SystematicAbuse at 5:16 AM on January 3, 2023

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posted by pangolin party at 5:22 AM on January 3, 2023

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posted by BrStekker at 1:55 PM on January 3, 2023

On the door at her Los Angeles store...

"Tao spiritual system. There was never more need for tao today. Tao gives you a feeling that you belong to cosmos and gives purpose to your life. It gives you such an identity and strength to know that you are living the life you can live and therefore ought to be living: make full use of your character and full use of your life on earth."
posted by goalyeehah at 2:45 PM on January 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

If you just want to look at the clothes, here's a Fug Girls retrospective with 85 Westwood looks on a range of celebrities.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 8:04 AM on January 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

She taught me the glambanging aspect of fashion, and I've always worn mismatched plaids and tartans and feel most fabulous when I do.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 1:51 PM on January 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

If you just want to look at the clothes, here's a Fug Girls retrospective with 85 Westwood looks on a range of celebrities.

That was fantastic, thanks for sharing. I had no idea she created Pharrell’s Hat.

I also just found this delightful short video of Naomi Campbell talking with Westwood about her notorious runway fall. Those shoes!
posted by Mchelly at 3:25 PM on January 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

I remember back in the day, one of the pre-edgelord takes on the Pistols is that they weren't really punk, because they were just an assembled boy band designed to show off a fashion designers work. The real irony is that Westwood ended up being far more punk for far longer than Lydon could keep up with.
posted by FatherDagon at 7:52 AM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]