Vivienne Westwood - Wonderful Woman No. 34

Vivienne Westwood - Born 1941
British Fashion Designer and Business Woman

Added to the album by a wonderful woman called Tara

To be truthful, modern fashion is not my area of expertise. I have not bought women's magazines for some years, I do not follow fashion blogs and during my lifetime, I have owned little more than a handful of designer clothes. I buy my clothes in charity shops and Primark, I wear things over and over, I recycle old outfits and have an unbelievable collection of accessories to wear with my plain old clothes. There are probably hundreds of designers you could name of whom I would never have heard but Vivienne Westwood, it would be almost impossible not to be aware of her... in fact, throughout my life, she has been a household name.

Vivenne was born in Derbyshire with humble beginnings. At the age of seventeen, with her family she moved to London. For one term only, she studied fashion and silver-smithing at the University of Westminster's Harrow School of Art, she left believing a working class girl could not make a career from art. She worked in a factory for a while and then studied to be a primary school teacher. Whilst working as a teacher, she made her own jewellery, which she sold at the weekends on a stall in London's Portobella Road.

In 1971, Vivienne was in the midst of breaking up with her first husband. In a squat she met an art student by the name of Malcolm McLaren, that was the start of a relationship that would change her life and the world of fashion forever. Vivienne left her job as a teacher, as the pair opened a boutique in London. For the boutique, she created clothes inspired by bikers, prostitutes and the seedy underbelly of London society. During this time, Malcolm became manager of the punk group The Sex Pistols. The group wore Vivienne's designs and in doing so the iconic image of punk in the 1970s was created, using bondage and fetish styles, spikes and safety-pins, combined with Scottish tartan and even designs inspired by 16th and 17th century historical portraits, Vivienne becoming a central part of the cultural movement taking place in the United Kingdom.

The idea of mad, mad, mad torturous clothing was kind of fun... and I support them [Vivienne and Malcolm Mclaren] for that, for going that way.
John Lydon

Vivienne's first catwalk show came in 1981, with the theme Pirates. All subsequent collections have had their own theme. Vivienne spearheaded the concept of fashion as art, her catwalk shows as much a theatrical experience as a platform for her wares. Reflective of her contribution of art through fashion, The Victoria and Albert museum exhibited a retrospective of her work in 2004/2005, since then a number of other world galleries have displayed her work.

Vivienne Westwood has become a celebrated brand, stores around the United Kingdom and also in Milan, Paris and L.A. Her designs are worn by the great and the good. She has been British designer of the year on three occasions and continues to be recognised as one of the most talented creatives of our time.

Intelligence is composed mostly of imagination, insight, things that have nothing to do with reason.
Vivienne Westwood