Celebrating designer Vivienne Westwood, queen of punk
Originally published August 4, 2013.
Punk was born to be incendiary, designed to provoke . . . a rebel yell in sound and fashion.
In New York this summer, the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is celebrating punk's legacy.
No other countercultural movement, the Met claims, has had a greater influence on fashion.
And there would have been no punk look without the lady in the orange hair.
"I remember designing some of these things," said Vivienne Westwood. "I remember I was very pleased with the graphics for that one after I worked it out."
In London in the 1970s, Westwood was the movement's designer and seamstress. She recalled, "I used to have a pile of muslin and cut them all together and not waste a scrap of fabric."
The guiding spirit of the punk image told Mason "I never, ever tried to shock people."
But she did! "The best way to confront British society," Westwood once said, "was to be as obscene as possible."
"At the time of punk rock, I was so outraged at the way the world is so corrupt and mismanaged and everything, that the look was supposed to be of an urban guerrilla," she told Mason. "It was somehow a kind of crusade to challenge the status quo."
At the Met she described some of the ways she did do: "We took some of the trousers from the rockers and motorbike things. And then I did some bondage straps, too, and started to get a look of, like, an army thing."
Hers was a fashion rebellion made of ripped fabric, safety pins and S&M gear. All familiar now, but outrageous then.
"For many years the newspapers thought of me as unwearable," Westwood said. "Nothing to do with fashion. English people are very snobby anyway. They don't like very artistic people to start with.
"They love me now!"
At 72, she's now a national treasure. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow wears her clothes. So does Meryl Streep. And in the 2008 film "Sex & the City," the character Carrie Bradshaw picks a Vivienne Westwood bridal gown.
But Westwood, who started out a primary school teacher, never wanted to be a fashion designer.
"Actually I started [with] fashion to help my boyfriend," she said. "He just needed somebody to help him make these clothes. And I always could make things, yeah."
Her boyfriend was Malcolm McLaren, manager of the pioneering punk rock band, the Sex Pistols.
Together in the Seventies, McLaren and Westwood opened a music and fashion shop on London's Kings Road. There is a replica of it at the punk exhibit at the Metropolitan, which Westwood judged "not too bad."
The door reads "Clothes for Heroes." "Yeah, yeah. I think that theme runs through my clothes. That's the mark of it somehow. You know, people who want to stand tall."
"Feels like yesterday in a way," said Mason.
"I don't know, doesn't everybody feel like this about their life? -- 'That's somebody else,' you know?" Westwood replied. "It happens to be me. But you know, you just move on, don't you?"
Forty years later, Westwood still owns her own company. Her fashion empire is headquartered in the Battersea neighborhood of London, where all her designs are brought to life.
"So this is where you test everything?" Mason asked.
"Yeah, and then when we're really satisfied and we really like something, then it's sent to Italy."
In her stores (she has 126 now), the Westwood style is still irreverent and uncompromising. She showed off a wedding dress: "Here we have an 18th century corset idea, but it's all done in one go."
What made her want to bring the corset back? "Ah well, this is fashion, isn't it? A lot of the time it's a reaction against what is."
Westwood herself is still reacting against "what is."
"You've said to people, 'Stop buying clothes' -- not a lot of fashion designers would be saying that," said Mason.
"I just said recently I think the Queen should wear her clothes more. She doesn't have to have a new outfit for every occasion. It's be great to see her in the same thing all week, you know?"
"You were anti-royal once."
"Yes, I was, definitely," said Westwood. "I thought the world was so dreadful, you know? But I don't think it's the fault of the Queen. At one time I thought of her as the symbol of all our hypocrisy. And I think the Queen is a wonderful asset, and is like social cement."
The Queen has returned the compliment; Westwood was made a dame in 2006.
How did Westwood feel about that? "You just think, 'I can't believe it. Why?' And then you just think about it and of course you think, 'Well, you've got to accept it. Otherwise you look like some sort of silly victim. Why do you not want to accept it?' "
"It almost seems a contradiction: your background in punk and becoming a dame," Mason said.
"It's very great to be honored, to be a dame -- I would think that I deserve to be a dame more than Margaret Thatcher did!" Westwood laughed. "I think that I've done more good in the world than she did, for example."
For a 1989 April Fools cover of the British magazine Tatler, Westwood even dressed up as the former British prime minister. "Oh, that was brilliant. That was really, really great. I was so proud of my acting ability!"
The former teacher has schooled us to expect the unexpected. The once anti-royal has become Britain's queen of cutting-edge couture.
"Do you still think of yourself as a rebel?" Mason asked.
"To tell you the honest truth, all I am really trying to do is to make the world a better place," she said.
We should read more, and go to art galleries, Dame Vivienne Westwood says. For her, fashion is still about the message, however hard it be may for some of us to hear.
For one, she says, "I never watch television."
"I won't take that personally," Mason said.
"No, you should stop watching it. Everybody should!"
For more info:
- viviennewestwood.co.uk
- Get a Life (Vivienne Westwood's blog)
- The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- "Punk: Chaos to Couture" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through August 19, 2013)
