As a child Vivienne remembers seeing the “New Look”, launched by Parisian fashion designer Christian Dior. The vision made such an impression on her that throughout her career she has often paid tribute to Dior returning to that striking simple yet elegant theme of smart and inventive tailoring. As a teenager she was always keen to make a statement, often customising her school uniform to re-create the fashionable pencil skirt of the day or spending many hours creating her own clothes to emulate the latest trends.
Vivienne’s first commercial ventures into fashion were with Malcolm McLaren. She met McLaren in 1965 and his drive invigorated her passion for fashion and experimentation with her own image. McLaren, a dynamic and radical character whom Vivienne regarded as ‘fascinating and mad’, had his finger on the pulse of contemporary culture and she had the creative flare to translate the ideas into clothing.
The collaboration was a dramatic, passionate venture which seemed to thrive on boundless energy and ideas. Their continually evolving vision was eventually brought to a wider public when in 1971 they established the clothes shop ‘Let it Rock’ on the Kings Road, initially recreating the mood and detail of early 1950’s Teddy-boys and Rockers. With later name changes of ‘Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die’ (1972), ‘SEX’ (1974), ‘Seditionaries’ (1976) and finally ‘World’s End’ (1979), Westwood’s and McLaren’s shop became the epicenter for Punk, their slashed t-shirts, rubber clothes and bondage details giving a distinctive and challenging uniform to the movement, while McLaren’s group, the Sex Pistols provided the anarchic soundtrack. The shop became famous for its sexually crude and evocative garments, T-shirts emblazoned with provocative phrases like ‘Cambridge Rapist’ and ‘Pedophilia’ causing controversy and outrage in the
mainstream of British society.
With the inevitable decline of the Punk movement’s power to shock and the absorption of its anti-establishment imagery into mainstream fashion, Vivienne began looking for new inspiration. The result was the Pirates Collection of 1981, which heralded the beginning of the New Romantics Movement. Ready access to the Victoria and Albert Museum’s National Art Library and its great collections of dress and costume allowed her to explore historical costume and from it she developed a completely new range of clothes that would form her first catwalk collection. This work brought to the fore the characteristic for which she is renowned, raiding history for ideas. Adam and the Ants and Spandau Ballet wore billowing, lavishly printed gold, red and orange shirts inspired by her studies of 18th century men’s clothing cleverly fused with contrasting styles such as North American Indians or swashbuckling pirates!
Following a split from McLaren and in response to increased international recognition, Vivienne relocated to Italy where her work, ideas and style were embraced with open arms. From 1984 to 1986 she developed a number of key outlines and styles which would become signatures for the coming years and integral to her increasing international acclaim. One such form was the crinoline reworked and re-titled the “Mini-Crini”. This new and dramatic form was in complete contrast to the catwalk offerings around her. While most designers were power dressing with exaggerated shoulders and narrow hips Vivienne looked to feminize the female form with all the celebration and sexual undertones she could muster. The corset also emerged as a key element in Westwood’s development of underwear-as-outwear, along with other historical body-shaping devices such as the bustle and the elevated shoe.
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BUYERS GUIDE COL L ECT ING VIVI ENNE WE S TWOOD
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