Vivienne Westwood: Fashion World Mourns As Fashion Designer Who Redefined Punk Aesthetics Dies At 81

The fashion industry was thrown into grief in the late hours of Thursday, December 29, 2022, following the death of punk queen Dame Vivienne Westwood forty years after her emergence in the industry. She was 81.

A statement by her representatives said the English fashion designer, considered an icon of punk style, died peacefully at her Clapham home in South London, on Thursday, December 29, 2022.

Before she became an icon of fashion, she was a primary school teacher with background knowledge in jewellery creation. A knowledge that has enthralled Gen Z fashion enthusiasts as her jewellery design, Westwood Mini Bas Relief Choker, first created in the late 80s, has dominated trends on fashion Tiktok.

Although she dropped out in her first term of studying a course on jewellery and silversmith at the University of Westminster in London, then known as the Harrow Art School, she changed the fashion world forever.

In the early 70s, punk rock was majorly about making a statement, whether political or social – with fashion. The subculture thrived in Britain following the economic downturn that came as a result of World War II. “British punks wore the sense of failure, hopelessness, and disappointment that many young people felt on their bodies for all to see,” a study on punk by Study.com opined.

At that moment, Vivienne Westwood’s boutique SEX, founded in 1974, thrived as she confronted social and sexual taboos by selling fetish and bondage wear. The Vivienne Westwood reign brought about the popularisation of ripped items of clothing held together with safety pins and graphic clothing embellished with paints were the in thing.

The brand she ran with her then-husband, Malcolm McLaren, put together and managed the rock band Sex Pistols. The four-member band, although only initially existing for two and half years, was responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom, and their style influenced the punk image.

“Vivienne and Malcolm use clothes to shock, irritate and provoke a reaction but also to inspire change. Mohair jumpers, knitted on big needles, so loosely that you can see all the way through them, T-shirts slashed and written on by hand, seams and labels on the outside, showing the construction of the piece; these attitudes are reflected in the music we make. It’s OK to not be perfect, to show the workings of your life and your mind in your songs and your clothes,” punk icon Viv Albertine mentioned in her Memoir.

Vivienne Westwood’s collections were a representation of her values. With every collection, there is a form of rebellion that she uses to juxtapose tradition and subculture. A feat that has placed her among the greats and made her design timeless.

In 1981 when she released her first fashion collection Pirates, in partnership with McLaren she changed the course of style again. The collection was categorised with outrageous proportions, makeup for men and women, and colours that led to the New Romantic period – a style of popular music and fashion popular in Britain between 1981 – 1985 in which both men and women wore make-up and dressed in flamboyant clothes.

Over 30 years of making history, the fashion designer was made the Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2006 for her contributions to fashion. This is a promotion from her previous title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire, which she received in 1992 when she famously went without underwear to meet the queen.

In a post announcing her death, Vivienne was said to have considered herself a Taoist. “Tao gives you a feeling that you belong to the cosmos and gives purpose to your life; it gives you such a sense of identity and strength to know you’re living the life you can live and therefore ought to be living: make full use of your character and full use of your life on earth,” Vivienne said before she passed.

From the primary school teacher who bought imperfect t-shirts and cut them up to make raw yet significant designs, she single-handedly made a marginalised subculture become mainstream with her designs. Not everyone can do that.