PARIS: Doyenne of British design Vivienne Westwood, who melded music and fashion together to help define punk and brought rebellious politics to the catwalk, died on Thursday aged 81, her family said.

Westwood made provocation itself into an art form — from the leather bondage gear she popularised in the 1970s to the time she went without underwear to Buckingham Palace to receive her damehood from the late Queen Elizabeth II.

“Vivienne Westwood died today, peacefully and surrounded by her family, in Clapham, South London. The world needs people like Vivienne to make a change for the better,” her fashion label’s Twitter account said.

In a statement quoted by the PA news agency, her husband and creative partner Andreas Kronthaler said: “We have been working until the end and she has given me plenty of things to get on with. Thank you darling.” Leading tributes, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum described Westwood as a “true revolutionary and rebellious force in fashion”, while Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan said she had been a “towering figure”. “Her punk style rewrote the rule book in the 1970s and (she) was widely admired for how she stayed true to her own values throughout her life,” she wrote on Twitter.

Colourful career

In an ever-colourful career, Westwood sent a bare-breasted Kate Moss down the runway munching on ice cream, and almost broke Naomi Campbell’s ankle when the supermodel failed to stay upright on a pair of her nine-inch platform heels.

And she held on to her edge even as she was embraced by the establishment, thanks largely to her energetic activism for environmental causes.

It was all a long way from the village of Tintwistle in northern England where Vivienne Isabel Swire was born on April 8, 1941, to a mother who worked in a cotton mill and a father who mended shoes.

She made her own tailored suits as a teenager and studied jewellery in London, but quickly dropped out, later saying: “I didn’t know how a working-class girl like me could possibly make a living in the art world.”

She became a teacher, married factory worker Derek Westwood and had a son by the time she was 22.

Her life took a major swerve when she left her husband for Malcolm McLaren, manager of the Sex Pistols, a few years later. Together, they opened a clothing store on London’s King’s Road that became the epicentre of the punk movement.

The shop morphed over time, but at its peak, under the name “SEX”, the ripped T-shirts, latex and leather bondage gear became the provocative uniform of a generation set on tearing down the last cultural taboos.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2022