Alison Sarah - Vintage Design

A legend lost. Vale Vivienne.

Vivienne Westwood, the maverick UK fashion designer whose five-decade career originated in the mid-1970s punk movement in London and who remained devoted to its ethos of anti-establishment agitation throughout her life, has died at the age of 81. Her brand announced the news of her death on its social accounts.

At the dawn of the punk era, Westwood, with her then partner Malcolm McLaren, helped to invent its “look” with designs that ranged from shredded T-shirts to bo***ge suits, emblazoned with anarchist symbols, N**i swastikas, inverted crucifixes and words like “DESTROY.” Dressing the S*x Pistols, who McLaren managed and promoted, she created a vocabulary of provocation that would not only shake up British fashion of the times, but also go on to define her own runway collections and influence the work of generations of designers to come.

A working-class girl from Derbyshire, who was largely untrained in fashion, Westwood was a primary school art teacher when she met McLaren in 1965 at the age of 24, already a young mother and separated from her first husband. Within a few years, she became the spikey-haired high priestess of punk who commanded London’s burgeoning counter-cultural movement while selling Teddy Boy clothes and bo***ge jeans from a cult retailer on the King’s Road. That she would ultimately be perceived as one of the most influential British designers of the 20th century, and alternatively as a batty eccentric for her political fulminations against consumerism and capitalism, underscored Westwood’s position as a fiercely independent creator who would help shape but never quite fit into the mainstream.

“We wanted to undermine the establishment,” Westwood once said. “We hate it. We want to destroy it. We don’t want it. We were youth against age, that’s what it was.”

I loved working with this lovely vintage silk to make this wrap skirt. That pattern and colour are gorgeous and it was a lightweight raw silk so very easy to work with!
I got to do French seams, rolled hems and button holes for the stunning vintage pearl buttons (which caused some grief for the waistband button hole 😬)
Very happy with the end result!

I’m pleased as punch to have finished my first real sewing project in YEARS!
I decided a couple of years back that I would make this dress for me to celebrate finishing my study, and completed it last night 😍
I’m looking forward to creating more and getting back into the love of sewing from now onwards 🪡 🌼

I’ve always adores these Christmas tree gowns - stunning designs! Maybe I’ll create one for my home one day …

I had the pleasure of seeing this exhibition and would highly recommend it!
I loved the diverse approaches and creativity in expression through the medium of fabric and fashion. Some very talented artists and designers ❤️