Tuesday, January 12

Viv

This shot from designer Vivienne Westwood's cat-walk some time ago. Dame Westwood largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into London's mainstream. It all started from her second marriage to Malcolm McLaren, who became the manager of The Sex Pistols. Malcolm decided to open a shop at 430 King's Road, Chelsea, in '71 - called, aptly, Let It Rock (also known as Sex, Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die, Seditionaries). Westwood began to sell her designs to the shop - which included bondage gear, safety pins, razor blades, bicycle or lavatory chains on clothing and spiked dog collars for jewelry. And of course the Sex Pistols wore them. The rest, as they say, is history.


The V&A did a retrospective of Westwood's work the year before Ossie, Britain's second most famous designer. Ossie was a major figure in the swinging '60s scene in London and the fashion industry of that era and the change from him to her quite remarkable.

"I'm not trying to do something different. I'm trying to do the same thing but in a different way."
--Vivienne Westwood