The best site for information on Westwood is
https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/vivienne-westwood
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/vivienne-westwood-punk-new-romantic-and-beyond
VIVIENNE WESTWOOD
The most eccentric and influential of Britain’s fashion designers who puts out on the runway the most amazing and spectacular clothes. Her Logo is a royal ORB with a cross on top, bejewelled and impressive as befits the Queen of British fashion.
In 1941, Vivienne Swire was born in Derbyshire, England. Her father was a shoemaker and her mother a cotton weaver. When she was 16, her family moved to London and Vivienne attended the Harrow School of Art. After spending just one term there, she left to become a primary school teacher. She met her first husband Derek Westwood in 1962 and married him. They had a son Ben. In 1965, she met Malcolm McLaren who became her partner in fashion as well as life. He was a very flamboyant man.
Her lines: Gold Label – her demi couture line of ready-to-wear and made to measure pieces
Red Label – her sassy tailoring, knits and shirts. Man, her menswear line.
Together they have a turnover of 20 million pounds per year. She supplies 550 stores in 30 countries which is all solely owned by Vivienne herself. Her managing director is carlo D’Amario.
The Westwood Style Vivienne Westwood is fashion’s chief architect of revolt. She was once queen of punk and is no stranger to the forms of sabotage that can pave the way for the next upheaval in style or taste.
Her clothes are revolutionary and controversial. Her designs include intentionally twisted seams, intentionally badly cut clothes, designs intended to shock, deliberate contradictions of colour. She ignores conventional fashion directions and goes her own way. She is queen of the original: bustiers, mens kilts, cone-shaped bras as day wear; classical paintings on underwear; the mini crinoline, fake fur trains, woolly royal crowns and so on.
totally new, is wonderful”.
