VIVIENNE WESTWOOD
A Cultural Serving
VIVIENNE WESTWOOD
The late fashion designer and punk icon Vivienne Westwood left a legacy of provocative designs and unabashed politics. She died in December at 81 and throughout her life, helped to define a subculture through bold, typographic jewelry, corsets, and graphic-laden garments. Her work began in 1965 with Malcolm McLaren, a British impresario who eventually managed the Sex Pistols, and the two shaped punk culture and what became the visual language of the scene. She went on to become a particuarly literary designer, frequently comparing her garments to narrative. “It’s not about fashion,” she wrote in her 2014 memoir. “For me, it’s about the story. It’s about ideas.”
Looking to the other end of literary gastronomy we might find the poet Emily Dickinson who, unlike Acker, was a notable baker and often wrote in the kitchen as she worked, sometimes using labels or chocolate wrappers as vessels for verse. One standout recipe is her gingerbread that takes about 35 minutes to bake, which is coincidentially the perfect amount of time to dip into her oeuvre.
Think about
Westwood’s understanding of position and influence: “You can’t be original by just wanting to do something. Nothing comes from a vacuum. It is impossible to be creative unless you have a link with the past and tradition…You should constantly try to understand the world in which you live, from the perspective of the way people saw things in the past.”
Influences
In a 2021 speech, Westwood said that "reading matters. It's the most concentrated form of experience we have.” Her favorite titles are unsurprisingly apocalyptic and deal in matters of power and revolution. They include Stoner by John Williams, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, 1984 by George Orwell, and The Story of the Stone by Cao Xuequin.
Westwood enjoyed the works Titian, Velasquez, and Vermeer. She frequently referenced 17th century Dutch painting as seen in the shape and components of her garments.
She was also a trenchant political and environmental activist and often incorporated such beliefs within her designs.
Keep reading
Catwalk collates more than 1,300 looks from 70-plus collections in Westwood’s oeuvre. The tartan-covered tome spans the designer’s 1981 debut to today with a mass of photography and writings.
Get a Life is a collection of Westwood’s diary entries that recount myriad details of her life since 2010, including Naomi Campbell’s birthday party, trips to the Amazon, and a drive to a prime minister’s home in a tank.
Written by So Textual
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