Vivienne Westwood

Original and outrageous, British designer Vivienne Westwood is one of the most
recognised and influential designers of the late twentieth century.

By her mid twenties, Vivienne Westwood’s life seemed to be passing in a distinctly

unremarkable way. At 25, she was married to an air steward; she lived in Willesden, went
to church and taught in a local primary school.
Then something remarkable happened, she met Malcolm McLaren, future manager of the
Sex Pistols, who lectured her on the political power of art and liberated her creative
desires from their bondage in working class conformity. Westwood became a rebellious
seamstress of pop.
Her first designs hung in Let it Rock on the King’s Road in 1971. She has played a vital role in
the emergence of Punk Rock in the 1970s and has gone on to become one of the most
original and influential designers of our time. Vivienne Westwood gained international
recognition in the early 1980s with her Pirate and New Romantics look. Her designs
combine a fearless individualism with a sense of tradition. She is famous for her gentle
parody of Establishment styles, her use of very British fabrics such as Harris tweed and
tartan and her re-use of historic garments such as the corset and crinoline. Yet, her
approach has always been practical, driven by a curiosity about how things work, a process
she describes as 'learning through action'.
Among other honours, Westwood also was awarded a place in the Victoria & Albert
museum, with the indigo platform boots that famously made Naomi Campbell fall down on
the catwalk in 1993. When in 1999 Queen Elizabeth II went to view the collection she was
heard to mutter: "I'm not surprised she fell."

Taken from: http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biographies/vivienne-westwood.html

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