The British fashion designer provoked the world with punk designs and clothes that came with a DIY twist
Vivienne Westwood, the godmother of punk fashion, has died.
The news was announced via her namesake label on Instagram, which revealed that the British fashion designer died “peacefully and surrounded by her family, in Clapham, South London”.
Westwood is best known for pioneering punk fashion in the 1970s. An untrained fashion designer, Westwood first opened a boutique on the King’s Road in London in 1965 with her partner Malcom McLaren. There, Westwood sold provocative designs such as shredded T-shirts and bondage jeans that captured the punk movement’s rebellious, anti-establishment ethos. The English rock band Sex Pistols, which McLaren managed, dressed in Westwood’s creations, further cementing her connection with the counter-cultural movement.
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Westwood and McLaren’s store took on a new name to coincide with Westwood’s latest collection, including Too Fast to Live Too Young to Die, Seditionaries, and most famously, Sex, which followed Westwood’s line of BDSM-inspired designs and fetish gear.
Westwood would eventually launch her own fashion label, unveiling her first runway collection, Pirates, in 1981. She established her unique aesthetic by adding a DIY twist to historical fashion styles, such as the Versailles court dress and the 18th-century Watteau gown. One of her most beloved designs, popularised by celebrities like Bella Hadid and Blackpink's Lisa, and coveted by vintage fashion collectors, is the corset, which she introduced in her Harris Tweed collection in 1987. Westwood radically turned the traditional underwear piece into outerwear as an act of female power, and would continue to reinterpret the piece throughout her career with 18th-century artworks or tartan fabric.
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