Vivienne Westwood was a student of the Glossop Grammar School.
College/University
Gallery of Vivienne Westwood
Watford Road, Harrow HA1 3TP, United Kingdom
In 1958 Vivienne Westwood began her studies at the University of Westminster, School of Media Arts & Design, where she studied fashion and silversmithing.
Career
Gallery of Vivienne Westwood
2008
London, United Kingdom
Academic dress of King's College London in different colours, designed and presented by Vivienne Westwood.
Gallery of Vivienne Westwood
2011
London, United Kingdom
Vivienne Westwood appears on the catwalk after her show during London Fashion Week Spring-Summer 2012 on September 17.
Gallery of Vivienne Westwood
2018
London, United Kingdom
British fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood (C) and her son Joe Corre (2nd L) stage an anti-fracking protest with campaigners outside Downing Street on June 5.
Gallery of Vivienne Westwood
2018
Paris, France
Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood walks the runway during the Vivienne Westwood show as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Fall-Winter 2018-2019 on March 3.
Gallery of Vivienne Westwood
Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren.
Achievements
2013
Milan, Italy
Vivienne Westwood during backstage at the Vivienne Westwood show during Milan Menswear Fashion Week Spring Summer 2014 on June 23.
British fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood (C) and her son Joe Corre (2nd L) stage an anti-fracking protest with campaigners outside Downing Street on June 5.
Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood walks the runway during the Vivienne Westwood show as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Fall-Winter 2018-2019 on March 3.
In 1958 Vivienne Westwood began her studies at the University of Westminster, School of Media Arts & Design, where she studied fashion and silversmithing.
(In 2010 Vivienne Westwood and Lee Jeans launched an onlin...)
In 2010 Vivienne Westwood and Lee Jeans launched an online manifesto-installation titled 100 Days of Active Resistance. This volume gathers these works and commemorates the project.
(For the first and only time, Vivienne Westwood has writte...)
For the first and only time, Vivienne Westwood has written a personal memoir, collaborating with award-winning biographer Ian Kelly, to describe the events, people, and ideas that have shaped her extraordinary life.
(Dame Vivienne Westwood has designed and introduced a spec...)
Dame Vivienne Westwood has designed and introduced a special 150th-anniversary edition of her favourite children's book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Vivienne Westwood is a British businesswoman and fashion designer. She is noted for bringing new wave and contemporary punk fashion into the mainstream industry.
Background
Mrs. Westwood was born on April 8, 1941 in Tintwistle, High Peak, United Kingdom. She was the daughter of Gordon Swire and Dora Swire. At the time of Vivienne Westwood's birth, her father was employed as a storekeeper in an aircraft factory, he had previously worked as a greengrocer.
Education
Vivienne Westwood graduated from the Glossop Grammar School. In 1958, when her family relocated to London, she attended the University of Westminster, School of Media Arts & Design, where she studied fashion and silversmithing. Following just one term she dropped out of college. After leaving college, she went on to work at a factory and later attended a teachers training college and subsequently became a primary school teacher.
Mrs. Westwood earned her living teaching, until she crossed paths with Malcolm McLaren, the man behind the punk rock group The Sex Pistols. Under his guidance and influence, she slid into the world of youthful fashion, which reflected the turmoil of those rebellious times. She was responsible for mirroring and outfitting the social movements characterized by the growing segments of British population known as the Teddy Boys, Rockers, and, finally, the Punks.
In 1971 the duo began making drastic changes in British style with a series of shops located at 430 Kings Road. The first was Let It Rock, a 1950 revival boutique, coinciding with the Teddy Boys movement and zoot suits. The store also sold 1950 memorabilia and rock music. Then in 1972 the shop was changed to Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die, a name stolen from a biker's jacket. In 1974 Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren opened their infamous Sex Shop, selling bondage and fetish fashions of rubber and leather. In 1975 they opened Seditionaries, the first authentic punk clothing shop in London. The shop translated the hard edges of street style in an interior filled with photos of a bombed-out, war-torn London.
When her Pirate collection coincided with the New Romantic fashion movement in London, the shop changed focus again, becoming Worlds End, with a bizarre fantasy interior of slate tiles, cuckoo clocks, and sloping floors. Her next collection was dubbed Clothes for Heros, and her patrons included the soon-to-be-famous Boy George. Mrs. Westwood's next three collections, Savage (1981) and Hobo and Buffalo (both in 1982), were highly innovative, and her wildly staged shows affected the show styles of other designers.
Soon after, another shop opened in London's fashionable West End with a 3-D map of Africa. It was called Nostalgia of Mud, the name a slam of middle-class longings for low-life seedy chic. Vivienne Westwood's clothing at this time consisted of rags tangled in hair, bras worn outside disheveled clothing, and ripped and torn T-shirts.
In 1983 Mrs. Westwood's alliance with Malcolm McLaren came to an explosive and painful end. Without his tutelage and often overbearing guidance, Mrs. Westwood began to extend her design range. The Witches Collection (summer of 1983), the first completely on her own, was a highly successful showing of oddly shaped, cut, and proportioned garments (the neckline often found under the arm) based on a book about voodoo she had read. Her clothing was cut, not on a board, but on the body, pulling, draping, and then, finally, cutting.
After several seasons' absence, Mrs. Westwood came back strong with her fall 1985 collection centered on the bubble-shaped hooped skirt with thigh-high stockings. Vivienne Westwood's Mini-Crinis caused a shift in silhouette that was swiftly picked up, first by Jean Paul Gaultier, then by almost every other designer in Europe and New York. In fact, 1986 was dubbed by fashion seers as The Year That Went Pouf, and all because of Vivienne Westwood.
Through the 1990 she continued to reign as Queen of Punk Fashion. She scandalized and outraged the world of fashion with bare-breasted models and bizarre creations at yearly shows in Paris and other centers of design. The same year she launched her own exclusive line of a complete menswear collection and the same year she opened “The Vivienne Westwood shop” in London.
In 1992 Vivienne Westwood started designing wedding gowns and also worked with the watch company Swatch, for which she designed a watch collection named Putti. In 1993 she collaborated with Swatch for the second time and created Orb, which is an exclusive range of watches. That following year, she also designed for the carpet company, Brinton’s.
She opened her first store in New York and the same year she launched her line of eyewear and the Coquetteries collection, a line of toiletries and body products, in 1999. In 2000 Mrs. Westwood showcased her collection titled "Vivienne Westwood: the collection of Romilly McAlpine at The Museum of London". That year, she also launched her own fragrance called, Libertine. In 2003 Vivienne Westwood opened her store in Milan and Liverpool and the previous year she opened a store and an accessories shop in Hong Kong. From November 2004 to January 2005, her retrospective show called "Vivienne Westwood - 34 years in fashion" was showcased at The National Gallery of Australia.
Mrs. Westwood collaborated with Nine West, a shoe brand, in 2006. Even though she does not directly design for the band, her name is associated with the label. In 2009 she designed for Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, the second wife of the Prince of Wales, Charles. Camilla wore her designs to the royal Ascot, a major race event in the Britain. A couple of years later, Vivienne Westwood designed for Princess Eugenie of York, who wore her designs at the Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. That year her collection was showcased at The Brandery fashion show, held in Barcelona.
In 2012 Vivienne Westwood worked with The Woolmark Company, for whom she created a twelve piece luxury collection that was made from some of the finest wool procured from Australia. In January 2013 she helped rebrand the English National Ballet with a new campaign that shows the ballet dancers wearing her creations.
The company announced in March 2015 that it is opening a three-storey outlet in midtown Manhattan in late 2015. This was scheduled to be followed by a new 3,200 sq ft shop in a building also housing the company's offices and showrooms in Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, due to open in early 2016. In 2015 Vivienne Westwood Ltd operated 12 retail outlets in the UK, including an outlet store in Bicester Village. There are currently 63 Mrs. Westwood outlets worldwide including 9 in China; 9 in Hong Kong; 18 in South Korea; six in Taiwan; two in Thailand; and two in the US: one in Los Angeles and the other in Hawaii.
(In 2010 Vivienne Westwood and Lee Jeans launched an onlin...)
2011
design
A sketch of Vivienne Westwood’s "Vive La Cocotte" dress
A sketch of Vivienne Westwood's "Vive La Cocotte" dress
Bridal and Couture Capsule Collections
Exclusive sketch by Vivienne Westwood
Fashion sketch by Vivienne Westwood
Vivienne Westwood design sketch
Vivienne Westwood design sketch
Vivienne Westwood Plaid Angie Rehe illustration
Vivienne Westwood designt Jockey-Outfits
Politics
Apart from her love for designing, she is a political activist as well. She has passed statements and has conducted campaigns in support of her political views. In April 1989 Vivienne Westwood appeared on the cover of Tatler dressed as then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The suit that she wore had been ordered for Mrs. Thatcher but had not yet been delivered. The cover, which bore the caption "This woman was once a punk", was included in The Guardian's list of the best ever UK magazine covers.
In September 2005 Vivienne Westwood launched T-shirt and baby-wear designs with slogan I AM NOT A TERRORIST, please don’t arrest me. She has done many more activities in order to get her views across.
Dame Vivienne stated on television in 2007 that she had transferred her long-standing support for the Labour Party to the Conservative Party, over the issues of civil liberties and human rights. Since early 2015, she has been a supporter of the Green Party of England and Wales.
In June 2013, Mrs. Westwood dedicated one of her collections to Chelsea Manning and at her fashion show she and all of her models wore large image badges of Manning with the word "TRUTH" under her picture. In 2014, she cut off her hair to highlight the dangers of climate change. She also appeared in a PETA ad campaign to promote World Water Day, drawing attention to the meat industry's water consumption. In 2014, she became ambassador for clean energy Trillion Fund.
In June 2017, Vivienne Westwood endorsed Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn for the 2017 UK general election.
All in all, Mrs. Westwood’s primary political concerns have shifted over the years; she is now predominately an activist for climate change, nuclear disarmament and civil rights, especially that of freedom of speech.
Views
Malcolm McLaren was a major inspiration to Westwood designs in punk fashion. Around 1985-1987 Vivienne Westwood took her inspiration from the ballet Petrushka to design the mini-crini, an abbreviated version of the Victorian crinoline.
In a 2007 interview, Westwood maвe a stand against what she perceived as the "drug of consumerism." In 2009 she attended the première of The Age of Stupid, a film aimed at motivating the public to act against climate change.
Later on, Vivienne Westwood created a manifesto called Active Resistance to Propaganda; it dealt with the pursuit of art in relation to the human predicament and climate change. In her manifesto, she claimed that it "penetrates to the root of the human predicament and offers the underlying solution. We have the choice to become more cultivated and therefore more human - or by muddling along as usual we shall remain the destructive and self-destroying animal, the victim of our own cleverness."
Against the claim that anti-consumerism and fashion contradict each other, she said: "I don't feel comfortable defending my clothes. But if you've got the money to afford them, then buy something from me. Just don't buy too much." Westwood faced criticism from eco-activists who pointed out that despite her calls to save the environment she herself makes no concessions to making her clothing or her business eco-friendly.
Quotations:
"It is not possible for a man to be elegant without a touch of femininity."
"Feminists wish women to seem like men. They're not men."
"I don't have space to enter into the examples or the history of this, so I'm left with having to make the bold statement that culture is extinct."
"But, having a perfume and license, in general, is a financial necessity. A designer must, to reap back the money spent on prototypes and all that sort of thing."
"I think feminists are unaware of the tremendous extent of the role of women in history."
"I think dress, hairstyle and make-up are the crucial factors in projecting an attractive persona and give one the chance to enhance one's best physical features."
"I can't think without my glasses."
"Buy less. Choose well. Make it last. Quality, not quantity. Everybody's buying far too many clothes."
"You have a more interesting life if you wear impressive clothes."
"I didn't consider myself a fashion designer at all at the time of punk. I was just using fashion as a way to express my resistance and to be rebellious. I came from the country, and by the time I got to London, I considered myself to be very stupid. It was my ambition to understand the world I live in."
"Popular culture is a contradiction in terms. If it's popular, it's not culture."
Personality
Vivienne Westwood is the philanthropist and humanitarian who is deeply concerned about the state of the world, for which she has great compassion and idealism. She has a romantic and somewhat utopian personality; she spends her life trying to realize some aspect of her utopian dream, sacrificing money, time, and energy for a better world.
Her broad outlook on life allows Westwood to see the big picture, and to often shy away from dealing with the minute details. That is why Vivienne Westwood attracts people who can fit into her larger plans and take over the areas she views as uninteresting.
When not in harmony with her true nature, Vivienne Westwood can fall to dispiritedness, or become indifferent, and withdrawn. At the same time, she tends to be quite adaptable, and she finds it easy to fit into most social setups and vocational fields.
As for her style, she is known for her heavily textured and patterned clothing that's has never been for the faint-of-heart, and often carried sexual or political connotations. Vivienne Westwood has never toned down her sense of style and continues to push the boundaries of what fashion looks like and what meaning it carries.
Westwood does not watch television or read newspapers or magazines. She is uninterested in pop culture and celebrities and admitted to not knowing who Emma Watson was when she presented her with the award of Elle Style Icon in 2001.
Physical Characteristics:
Vivienne Westwood's height is 1.67 m. She has light brown eyes.
Quotes from others about the person
Gwen Stefani: "I love Vivienne Westwood. So much. Every time I go to London, first thing I do is go in there. It's ridiculous."
Antonia Thomas: "Vivienne Westwood makes such beautifully structured clothes that are especially flattering if you are curvy."
Charli XCX: "Vivienne Westwood really inspires me. I love her punk ethos."
Eliza Doolittle: "I love lots of designers. I will always love Vivienne Westwood; she is a legendary designer."
Beth Ditto: "I love Vivienne Westwood. Her work is so interesting, you can always find something that's great and fits you."
Interests
gardening
Connections
In 1962 Vivienne Westwood married Derek Westwood, who was at that time an apprentice at the hoover factory in Harrow, London. The following year, they had a son, Ben Westwood. He is currently a photographer of erotica. The marriage ended in divorce in 1965. Later she became romantically involved with Malcolm McLaren, an English artist, with whom she had a son, Joseph Corré (born 1967), the founder of lingerie brand Agent Provocateur. In 1992, she married Andreas Kronthaler, her former student, and the couple live together in a Queen Anne style house in Britian.
Son:
Joseph Corré
Son:
Ben Westwood
husband:
Andreas Kronthaler
husband:
Derek Westwood
Partner:
Malcolm McLaren
References
Vivienne Westwood: A London Fashion
This is the first book to concentrate less on Westwood as a personality than on the extraordinary and intricate clothes which have won her the respect of the international fashion community.
Vivienne Westwood (Va)
The London Daily Express called this first full study of Vivienne Westwood's work as a groundbreaking fashion designer "a delight for any followers of fashion."
Vivienne Westwood: Shoes
Vivienne Westwood Shoes includes a biography and chronology of the designer's life and work, most recently her 25th year of runway shows, a first major retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and designs for the rich and famous - from Tracey Emin to Cameron Diaz.
Vivienne Westwood
Packed into 120 pages, the book contains biographical and personal information as well as imagery from over 30 years of i-D’s history with images from photographers including Juergen Teller, Nick Knight, and Chen Man plus interviews with Caroline Baker, Caryn Franklin, Ben Reardon, and Terry Jones.
2013
Vivienne Westwood
This volume vividly documents both the keen intelligence and the exuberant originality of Vivienne Westwood's career and fashion vision.