Vivienne Westwood's Legacy Lives on in a New Guard of Designers

The Dame’s influence on the fashion industry can be seen in many of today’s hottest brands.

In a discussion of the fashion greats, Vivienne Westwood‘s legacy holds a different kind of power.

Sculptural tailoring, opulent silhouettes and social activism aside, the late designer’s unapologetic approach to fashion pushed the boundaries of conventional beauty in a way that, at the time of her debut in the ’60s, made many uncomfortable. And while her journey was not without ridicule, the Dame’s glaring influence on the industry today lives on in the countless designers she’s impacted through her work.

“She had a naturally punk perspective,” says Ambria Mische, senior vice president of buying and merchandising for What Goes Around Comes Around. “She didn’t try to perpetuate ordinary beauty. It was ‘in your face’ — harsh, pushy, edgy, sexual, unapologetic. She combined that with atelier quality, then took the edgy nature of her silhouette and provided consistent output, which in fashion is important.”

Mische adds that though her designs varied, “there was also a reliability in what she was offering that really resonated” with her cult followers.

Westwood entered the market in 1961 as a purveyor for London’s underground fashion scene, a title she would maintain throughout her 50-year career. Selling vintage pieces from the 1950s alongside former partner Malcom McLaren, the self-taught designer began customizing T-shirts with tattered rips, provocative graphics (think “God Save the Queen”) and sexually charged slogans before staging her first commercial collection, titled Pirates, in 1981. That changed everything.

“It was her first-ever runway show,” Brianna Kennedy, the user behind Instagram’s resident archive account for the brand, @thewestwoodarchives, explains over email. “Before the collection, she was seen as a one-trick pony, only capable of designing punk fashion. ‘Pirates’ proved she was capable of much more.”

The digital archivist (with 155K followers and counting) started @thewestwoodarchives in February 2020, as a way to enshrine Westwood’s most integral moments online. She cites the Fall 1990 “Portrait” collection, inspired by London’s Wallace Collection, as seminal, and not only for birthing the infamous Bas Relief Pearl choker necklace and giving us the Boucher corset kissing moment between models Denise Lewis and Suzie Cave (neé Bick): It was also the first time Westwood combined her love of art with fashion in a literal way. What Goes Around Comes Around has sold a few corsets from that line — “which, in my opinion, are the most opulent of her bustiers. and go for up to $50,000, depending on condition and image variation,” says Mische. “Those are rare gems that one can only hope to even touch in their lifetime.”

Then, there’s the infamous tartan-clad “Anglomania” Fall 1993 collection, which featured models (including Naomi Campbell) in ankle-breaking 13-inch platforms. 

“It showcases Vivienne’s love of British tradition and fashion, as the show was inspired by Scotland,” Kennedy says. “[She] made a wedding dress out of her own tartan pattern, which she named ‘MacAndreas’ after Andreas Kronthler,” the Austrian creative partner-turned-spouse of the late designer.

Today, Westwood is revered for her ability to seamlessly combine timelines: Cinched bustiers and draped gowns à la 18th-century France are made modern with contemporary fabrics like denim. (Case in point: the “Statue of Liberty” corsets.) 

“Oftentimes, designers rise in the fashion industry because of a silhouette — a calling card,” Mische says. “Fashion is the decoration of the human body. When a designer like Vivienne does the work, she figures out how to really create that line to accentuate the figure, and then creates variations and renditions of a recognized silhouette.”

This approach is still being adopted by designers, specifically the new guard thriving in the digital age. It-girl label Poster Girl is a prime example: Co-founded in 2017 by design duo Natasha Somerville and Francesca Capper, the brand has become a household name, its highly-coveted ‘Miranda’ dress now a signature. (The hashtag for the brand itself has generated 359.9 million views on TikTok, while the more specific tag #postergirldress is sitting pretty at 513.5 million views.)

“I interned with Vivienne Westwood before I started my course at Central Saint Martins,” Capper recalls over email. “It was incredible. I worked across so many departments, including the archive, the pattern studio, the Paris shows and even modeling for her in the collection fittings. Having my icon pin fabric and creatively deliberate in front of me was mind-blowing. I think this fly-on-the-wall knowledge was priceless.”

For her part, Somerville says she’s “always been hugely fascinated by [Westwood’s] unusual construction techniques”: “She just didn’t get a f*** what people thought of her and her designs, which is so important, when you put your work out into the world.”

“Poster Girl could be described as quite punk, in a way — we always prefer to go against the grain and not follow a set of rules,” she writes, via e-mail. “Her rebellious nature is a huge inspiration to me; being an Aries, four days apart, I think we’re similar in a lot of ways. Francesca and I always say that Poster Girl is a feeling and an energy. Our goal is to always celebrate the bodies and make the wearer feel the sexiest they’ve ever felt.”

With more than a dozen iterations of its fan-favorite, cutout mini being produced each season, Poster Girl’s Miranda — a modern interpretation of the teeny tiny, mid-2000s club dress — feels reminiscent of how Westwood was able to recontextualize and reinvent the corset in the late ’80s and early ’90s. In both instances, there’s a reclamation of female power and sexuality at play that resonates with consumers and challenges societal beliefs on aesthetic autonomy.

“I play around with the idea of sexuality because I don’t like orthodoxy in any shape or form,” Westwood said in a clip from her “The South Bank Show” documentary in 1990. “And I don’t think it’s possible for any man to be sexy, unless he’s got a touch of femininity in what he’s wearing.”

The Dame’s impact on the market presents itself in a more literal sense when taking the current trend cycle into consideration: Fashion’s penchant for bloomers immediately comes to mind, though the infamous bustier is the more prominent example. Brands of all sizes are co-opting corsets and producing their own fashion-first takes on them — something that simply wasn’t done until Westwood’s 1987 Harris Tweed collection. Now, we see them in the core collections of Miaou, which has incorporated these boned styles into its core collection; CFDA Award-winning label Elena Velez and Sydney-based Dion Lee are other prominent examples. These historical pieces have come a long way from their traditional use as undergarments, and we ultimately have Vivienne Westwood to thank for that.

“Over time, many have been inspired by her designs and concepts,” Kennedy says. “In the late ’90s and early 2000s many designers, like [John] Galliano and [Alexander] McQueen, started combining the past with the present, where they used old techniques but changed something about the garment, like [Westwood]. Her designs have become trends decades later.”

But at its core, Westwood’s popularity some 50 years later has a lot to do with fashion’s affinity for nostalgia: With millennials partaking in trends that they were too young to enjoy the first time around and Gen Z being introduced to the pop culture of the past through social media, everyone is looking to feel… something, no matter from what period. Among all of the things that Vivienne Westwood has done well, it’s her innate ability to evoke emotion through clothing.

As Somerville puts it: “It wasn’t just about the clothes.” 

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Source: Fashionista.com