Vivienne Westwood: the Godmother of Punk
- Raegan Cleary
- Feb 27, 2019
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 25, 2019
The godmother of punk, Vivienne Westwood was born April 8, 1941 in Glossop, Derbyshire, UK. At age 17 she moved to London and studied fashion and jewelry making at Harrow School of Art, however she left Harrow after one term, to pursue a more stable career in teaching. While teaching, she also designed and sold her own jewelry. In 1962 Westwood married Derek Westwood and they had one son together, Ben. By 1965 Westwood and her husband had separated.
Soon after, Westwood met Malcolm McLaren, the future manager of the Sex Pistols. In 1971 McClaren opened a shop called Let It Rock on Kings Road. The shop sold Teddy Boy fashion, 1950s revival look featuring skinny ties and suits. A year later it was renamed Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die which catered to biker style. In 1974, the store once again changed its name to Sex and sold punk fashion inspired by bondage and fetish wear, along with their in-house line of clothing called Seditionaries, designed by Westwood and soon popularized by the Sex Pistols.
When punk became mainstream, Westwood changed her aesthetic. In 1981 Westwood created her first runway collection called Pirate. It featured jackets with bold patterns, loose trousers and oversized shirts with sashes. Westwood continued to get inspiration from the past. Her S/S 1985 Collection was influenced by Victorian fashion. In typical Westwood fashion, she continued to push the envelope in her deisgns and featured giant platform shoes (the ones responsible for Naomi Campbell’s iconic fall), undergarments as outwear, and used what she called the “mini-crini,” a Victorian inspired hoopskirt that emphasized the hips and bum.
Today, Westwood is known for her bold designs that challenge gender stereotypes and have obvious political themes. Her S/S 2019 collection features men in dresses and women in baggy suits, shirts prints with “Buy Less” scrawled across the front and oversized tunics that say “I fought the law.”
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