She created punk rock and later designed for Madonna. Vivienne Westwood would have turned 82

She designed the famous wedding dress Sarah Jessica Parker wore in the movie “Sex and the City”. It’s definitely not her most influential project though. Thanks to it, punk fashion developed, and indirectly, a band that became an icon of the entire subculture could also exist. On April 8, 2023, she would have turned 82.

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In alliance with punks – the era of the SEX boutique

The designer’s first husband was an apprentice at The Hoover Company, Derek Westwood, but their formal relationship lasted only three years. The woman mainly learned her name from it, quit her job as a teacher and devoted herself to fashion. Perhaps it was in her blood – her mother was a weaver in the local cotton mill, and Vivienne made her own dress for her first – albeit unsuccessful – wedding. She quickly became involved with Malcolm McLaren, with whom she was connected not only by affection, but also by professional cooperation.

In 1971, the couple opened the SEX boutique, initially also known as Let It Rock and Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die. From the beginning, the store’s offer was addressed to representatives of subcultures – initially popular in Great Britain in the 1950s “teddy boys”, later – punks. All thanks to the regulars of the boutique from The Strand, whose singer asked McLaren for financial support and to pay for renting a rehearsal room. He not only agreed to this proposal, but also found a new bassist for the musicians, who happened to be working as a salesman in his store.

SEX quickly became a meeting place for the leading representatives of the then emerging British punk scene. When McLaren went to New York, he became fascinated by the new style and brought to London inspirations taken from the New York Dolls band, of which he had been the manager for some time. He wanted to develop The Strand’s career in a similar way – he replaced the vocalist with the eccentric John Lydon, who bought him a T-shirt with the meaningful inscription “I Hate Pink Floyd”, and later the Sex Pistols, whose name was influenced by Vivienne and Malcolm’s boutique, was joined by a regular storefront and the group’s most famous member, Sid Vicious. The team was dressed by a well-known designer for years. Torn t-shirts, prints with the British queen, accessories taken from fetishists – these are all her ideas.

Not only punk rock

In the following years, Vivienne Westwood continued to popularize controversial trends, exerting a significant influence on the shape of punk and new wave styles. With the “New Romantic” collection, inspired by Victorian fashion and Russian ballet, “Petrushka” defined the look of another band – Adam and the Ants. She also sold clothes with politically engaged prints, including in the campaign for nuclear disarmament, climate change and civil rights.

She did not stop at the SEX boutique and soon opened four more stores in London, and later in other cities in the UK and around the world. In 2015, there were as many as 63 of them. For years, she created with McLaren – their first joint collection was “Pirate”, and after the couple’s breakup, she radically changed direction, showing the “Clint Eastwood” collection to the world. She designed costumes for Madonna (creation from the music video for “Rain”), as well as clothes for the films “Leaving Las Vegas”, “Killer Occupation” and “Troublesome Boy”.

What we now know as punk fashion can largely be attributed to Westwood’s work. She was a pioneer in bringing environmental and social activism to public space in the form of subversive clothing. Westwood’s interpretation of the punk aesthetic has always been a visual expression of heretical lifestyle and rebel rhetoric.

– was written about her in the magazine “L’officiel”, and in 2022 “Sky Art” placed her in fourth place on the list of the most influential Britons. She died on December 29, 2022 in the city where it all began – London. She was 81 years old.