In 1974, an unexpected customer walked into the Vivienne Westwood SEX clothing store on King’s Road in London. He told an aide that tight leather pants, a swastika jacket with political slogans and a rubber T-shirt featuring a woman’s chest were “weird”.
Upon receiving the comment, Westwood told him in her deepest Derbyshire vows: “You look like you’re in a goddamn warehouse. Not at my shop. If you don’t like, get out.”
He went out.
Westwood, who passed away aged 81 this week, went on to become a celebrity of British fashion and the head of a global brand. But she never lost her bite.
Last year, she rounded up on politicians. “Every world leader is against everyone,” she said. “I call them demons.”
Regarding the then British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, she said: “He was never altruistic. He was completely destructive.”
A born agitator Westwood once parked a white tank outside Prime Minister David Cameron’s house another time to protest the use of fracking.
She was born Vivienne Swire on April 8, 1942 in the Pennine village of Tintwistle. Her father works in a local sausage factory, her mother is an assistant at a green grocer.
Vivienne later asserted that her worldview changed at the age of 4 when she saw the crucifix: “I have lost respect for my parents. I suddenly realized that this is adult world – full of cruelty and hypocrisy. My parents lied about baby Jesus, rather than what happened to him.”
At the age of five, she was able to make her own shoes. In 1962, she married Derek Westwood in a wedding dress and jewelry she made herself. In 1965, she met Malcolm McLaren, who she said was a virgin. They began their relationship when Westwood ended the marriage.
They opened a store on King’s Road called Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die, which later became SEX. Chrissie Hynde and Toyah work there.
McLaren has managed The Sex Pistols. Westwood created the look for the band and invented punk with tight clothing. She also claims that she came up with the idea for the song Anarchy In The UK by the Sex Pistols.
Westwood’s iconic 1976 ‘Destroy’ T-shirt is aimed at Chile’s Augusto Pinochet and right-wing dictators. To whom she says: “We do not accept your values or taboos. You are all fascists.”
After punk, she created the look for the New Romantic movement in late 1979 and took her fashion sense internationally.
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A decade later, the influential Women’s Wear Daily named her six of the best designers of the 20th century. In 1989, she mocked British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by appearing dressed as a Woman. iron on the cover of the British Tatler magazine.
She described Thatcher as causing “real damage to the world”. The magazine’s editor was later fired.
The Queen gave Westwood an OBE in 1992. She went to Buckingham Palace to receive her honorary sans lingerie.
She’s a haute couture nun who reinvented the 17th corset and brought Naomi Campbell down the catwalk in 9-inch heels but Westwood is also an anarchist idealist. dedicated government, who rebelled against compliance. A true northern soul.
She thinks Oasis is a joke, believes John Lydon lost his creativity and credibility after the Sex Pistols, and sees pop culture as well as passive youth.
She supported the Occupy protesters outside St Paul’s in London in 2011.
She also supports PETA and Aids research and combats climate change. Until the end, she remains an indomitable spirit, the fiery godmother of punk music. In one of her last interviews, she said, “We have to end pollution. We have to end war. We don’t need bombs.”
Westwood is an important part of culture and fashion (which has influenced everyone from Alexander McQueen to artists like Tracey Emin) but she’s always been an outsider.
My only interaction with the great redhead was in 1990. It was foolish of me to ask her if there was a relationship between her creativity and her dreams. To say that she got angry at my silly question would be an understatement like describing Roy Keane as someone with a bit of a temper.
“Oh, get out! I don’t care what I dream! For god’s sake, you fucking idiot.”
Never meet your hero.
Or spend your week’s rent on a purple velvet Westwood bomber jacket I bought from Marianne Gunn O’Connor (who would later become one of Ireland’s greatest literary authors) in store. her famous Otokio store in Dublin and was robbed in a nightclub a month later.
I probably look like I should be in the gourd barn.
https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/barry-egan-vivienne-westwood-was-the-fiery-godmother-of-punk-who-railed-against-hypocrisy-fascism-and-my-own-moronic-question-42254881.html Barry Egan: Vivienne Westwood is the fiery godmother of punk who condemned hypocrisy, fascism… and my own silly question.
