Westwood soon made an international name for herself with her radical and flamboyant approach. Her fashion has walked the runways in London, Paris, Milan and New York. The range was wide, but the work was never predictable. “They gave the punk movement a look, a style, and it was so radical that it broke with everything in the past,” Andrew Bolton, curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, told the Associated Press (AP).
“The torn shirts, the safety pins, the provocative slogans. She introduced postmodernism. She was very influential from the mid-1970s. The punk movement never broke up – it has become part of our fashion vocabulary. It’s mainstream now.” As Westwood got older, her fashions were also featured in various museum collections.
Fashion for the Sex Pistols
Westwood’s life and career were full of contradictions. Westwood, who was born near Manchester in 1941 and is the daughter of a cotton spinner and grocer, only gave up her teaching job in the 1970s and started her fashion career. The mother of two had previously started tailoring clothes for her sons. In the mid-70s, she became known for inventing punk fashion. She was best known for her androgynous cuts and provocative slogans.
Westwood is considered a pioneer of punk in the fashion industry. Together with then art student Malcolm McLaren she ran a boutique with often changing names from Let it rock to Too fast to live on London’s King’s Road. The joint venture was later renamed Sex. In late 1975, McLaren began managing a punk rock band made up of the store’s regular customers – the Sex Pistols. They became famous for wearing Westwood’s and McLaren’s designs. Westwood took the success of the King’s Road out into the world and from it built a global fashion brand that now has stores in Great Britain, France, Italy, America and Asia.
Fight against the establishment, honored by the Queen
She stirred public opinion with her disrespectful attitude towards the establishment just as another controversial woman, Margaret Thatcher, entered the – political – stage as British Prime Minister. Westwood rebelled against the society she came from, but still drew on attributes such as the orb, which she encircled with a ring of Saturn for her logo. Even after leaving McLaren, she remained true to her rebellious creativity. She was inspired by fashion from the 18th and 19th centuries and designed shrill and eccentric versions of the magnificent dresses.
The rebellious designer, who had spurned the British establishment, was nevertheless honored several times by Queen Elizabeth II, who also died in 2022. In 1992 she was admitted to the Order of the British Empire, 14 years later the Queen made her a lady.
However, Westwood did not become the fashion designer of Buckingham Palace. Rather, she recommended that the style icon and Duchess Kate of the time reduce their outfits – because of environmental protection. Westwood, her trademark orange hair, eventually used her notoriety to fight global warming. She also brought climate change to the catwalk. Westwood is survived by her partner Kronthaler and two sons – photographer Ben Westwood and Joseph Corre, founder of lingerie company Agent Provocateur.
