Vivienne Westwood: throughout the years

Born Vivienne Isabel Swire on April 8, 1941, in Derbyshire, Westwood. She was married Derek Westwood in 1962 and they welcomed her son Benjamin in 1963.

Everything changed when she met Malcolm McLaren in 1965. Her marriage to Derek ended, and she welcomed a son with McLaren, named Joseph in 1967. She started to create clothes that McLaren designed and when he became the manager of the Sex Pistols, they helped change British fashion, with the punk band wearing their designs.

After opening a boutique in 1971 variously named Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die; Sex; they staged their first commercial easy-to-wear collection. They ended their relationship in 1981, but continued to work together for the next 5 years, per Britannica. Westwood then established her career as an independent designer, with her 1985 “mini-crini” design marking a turning point in her career.

The designer married her husband Andreas Kronthaler in 1992, who would later become the creative director of her label.

She became a pop culture icon, with celebrities like Kate Beckinsale, Rachel McAdams, Angelina Jolie, Dianna Agron, Demi Moore, Kerry Washington, Jennifer Aniston, and more, wearing her designs.

She has been honored many times, and in 2004 the Vivienne Westwood Private View displayed over 150 outfits as part of a massive retrospective spanning Westwood’s entire career.

Her son, Joe, who she welcomed with McLaren followed in her activist footsteps. In 2016 she addressed a crowd at the Chelsea Embankment who had gathered to witness her son burn his collection of punk memorabilia in protest.

Westwood and Kronthaler had similar beliefs when it came to fashion, androgyny, and unisex clothing. “Ever since I met him, Andreas has promoted robes and skirts for men, that’s why he loves the kilt. He invented his own turquoise tartan, ‘MacAndreas’,” she told Vogue in 2021.

Westwood dedicated her life to activism and climate reform. “Climate change, not fashion, is now my priority,” she told The Guardian in 2014. In 2015 she met with indigenous Kayapo chief Raoni Metuktire, who is a symbol for the preservation of the Amazon rainforest meets during the COP21 talks.

Her activist never slowed, and in 2018 she dressed as an angel, participating in the demonstration outside the Royal Courts of Justice, Britain’s High Court, in central London along with other anti-fracking activists.

Earlier this year the designer acknowledged the audience at the end of her Fall-Winter 2022-2023 collection fashion show during the Paris Womenswear Fashion Week, in Paris, on March 5, 2022. Like her family wrote, she did what she loved until the very end.

In the words of her husband, who told Vogue in 2021, “You, Vivienne, are never stuck, you are so tolerant, not bogged down by preconceptions. You see things with fresh eyes every time.”