Themis alexia brief-1_vwestwood_ad101

WHO IS VIVIENNE WESTWOOD ?

WHAT IS SHE FAMOUS FOR ?

WHY IS SHE INFLUENTIAL ?

WHEN AND WHERE ?

HOW HAS SHE INFLUENCED PEOPLE AND THE FASHION INDUSTRY ?

REFERENCES

ALEXIA-YNES THEMIS00075929T

DESIGN CULTURE AND THEORY

Vivienne Westwood is one of

the most prominent British

fashion designers of the twen-

tieth century, earning the title

“the mother of punk” for her

direct affiliation with the 1970s

subcultural youth fashion move-

ment known as new wave punk.

Born in Tintwistle, Derbyshire

in 1941, the early life of Vivi-

enne Isabel Swire was as or-

dinary as any other. Although

she briefly studied fashion and

silversmithing for a term at

the University of Westminster,

she instead went on and be-

came a primary school teacher,

claiming “I didn’t know how a

working-class girl like me could

possibly make a living in the art

world”.

By 1963, at the age of 24, Vivi-

enne was married to her first

husband, Derek Westwood,

and gave birth to her first son.

During these teaching years, she

would make her own jewellery,

which she sold at a stall on Por-

tobello Road.

Vivienne Westwood continued to teach until 1971, when she moved into a small council flat in Clapham with her two sons, second husband, and future business partner, Mal-colm McLaren, who, that same year decided to open a boutique at 430 King’s Road called ‘Let it Rock’, where Westwood created the clothes that McLaren conceived. They were more inspired and interested by rebellion than the 60s hippie movement. It was during this peri-od where McLaren had become the manager of the punk band the Sex Pistols, and sub-sequently, the two gar-

nered attention as the band would wear West-wood and McLaren’s designs. Westwood was deeply interested in the punk fashion phenomenon of the 1970s, saying “I was messianic about punk, seeing if one could put a spoke in the system in some way”.

The ‘punk style’ includ-ed BDSM fashion, bondage gear, safety pins, razor blades, bicy-cle chains on clothing and spiked dog collars for jewellery as well as outrageous make-up and hair. Essential de-sign elements included the adoption of tradi-tional elements of Scot-tish design like tartan

fabric.By 1972 their interests had changed, drawing up inspiration from bikers, sexual fetishists, and prostitues.

The shop was re-brand-ed with a skull and crossbones and re-named ‘Too fast to live, too young to die’. West-wood and McLaren began to design t-shirts with provocative mes-sages which lead to their prosecution under the obscenity laws. Their reaction to this was to rebrand the shop again and produce even more hardcore images. By 1974 the shop had been renamed to ‘SEX’, with the slogan ‘rubber-wear for the office’.

By 1976 the Sex Pistols ‘God Save the Queen’, managed by McLaren, went to number one and was refused air time by the BBC. The shop reopened as ‘Sedition-aires’, transforming the straps and zips of ob-scure sexual fetishism into fashion and in-spiring a do-it-yourself aesthetic. The media named it ‘punk rock’. In 1980 the shop was refitted again and re-named ‘World’s End’. The name is still in use today where West-wood sells her Vivienne Westwood label cloth-ing.

The collapse of the Sex Pis-tols and the absorption of this outrageous and provoc-ative cultural phenomenon of punk by the mainstream resulted in a growing sense of disillusionment with work-ing on the fringes which had Westwood and McLaren reassessing their position.Vivienne Westwood’s do-it-yourself approach to the punk culture of the 1970s left a strong legacy that we still see traces of today. The defi-nition of postmodern is elu-sive, however its connection to punk ideology and style appears intrinsic.

Vivienne Westwood’s col-laboration with Malcom McLaren spanned through 1971-1982 with the majority of it being the Punk age at their 430 King’s Road shop.

The early 1980s marked a turning point in McLaren and Westwood’s collaborative ca-reer. For the first time, she began to see herself as a fashion designer, but she needed new direction. She wanted to get out of that dark feel-ing of England. McLaren suggest-ed she look at his-tory. Out of the new-ly refitted shop ‘World’s End’ came Pirate, McLaren and nWestwood’s first catwalk collec-

tion. It was shown in the spring of 1981. The clothes evoked the golden age of piracy, an age of highwaymen and buccaneers, as opposed to Punk where the garments were unisex. The collection im-mediately entered the mainstream.

From 1982 on-wards her collc-tions have been hit after hit with Savage, Buffalo Girls (Nostalgia of Mud) 1982-83; inspired by Peruvi-an women wearing bowler hats and full

skirts, dancing with their babies tied on their backs, 1983s Punkature which held inspiration from the recent Blade Runner film and desert land-scape. 1983-84 Witches and Hypnos collec-tions. To the 1985 Clint Eastwood collection, of which Westwood has said: “Sometimes you need to transport your idea to an empty landscape and then populate it with fan-tastic looking people.”

The do-it-your-self attitude of punk styling was a unique product of a particular soci-ocultural history after which, during the 1980sand ‘90s, global style con-tinued to evolve along the same aesthetic trajecto-ry. Other elements that have recently been associated with the postmod-ern mode include clothing and imagery that ap-pear dirty, ripped, scarred, shocking, spectacular, cru-el, traumatised, sick, or alienating — all these were

qualities actively sought by Vivi-enne Westwood and the punks of the 1970s.In the 21st cen-tury she has put historicism aside. Her most recent collections evokes the ethnic trend she explored in the ‘80s. Her ap-petite to shock and transgress the British imaginary introduced a wave of modernism in the British fashion, which was declin-ing because of the lack of inventive-ness of its design-ers.

Westwood is now one of the best known and most admired fashion designers and her work has been an important influ-ence on interna-tional fashion: from French to Japanese designers. Vivienne West-wood has become a model but also a real source of in-spiration.

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