Vivienne Westwood, the English style designer who brought punk fashion to the entire world, died on Thursday. She was 81.
“Vivienne Westwood died right now, peacefully and surrounded by her family, in Clapham, South London,” a publish on her official Twitter site reads. “The planet desires people like Vivienne to make a alter for the far better.”
The announcement consists of the subsequent quotation from Westwood: “Tao non secular program. There was by no means extra need to have for the Tao currently. Tao provides you a feeling that you belong to the cosmos and offers objective to your lifetime it presents you these types of a perception of identification and power to know you are dwelling the everyday living you can live and hence should to be living: make complete use of your character and total use of your existence on earth.”
1st rising to prominence in the 1970s as the co-operator of the boutique Intercourse along with Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, Westwood helped to form the design and style of the U.K. punk scene.
The shop grew to become a assembly position for punk bands, and Westwood’s creations, worn by London punk rockers, released a new design and style to the entire world that built use of pinned-together parts, rubber and plastic apparel, a lot of zippers, tartan bondage trousers, torn cloth and graffitied t-shirts. Chrissie Hynde and users of the Intercourse Pistols had been among the the influential shop’s staff.
The store was renamed Seditionaries – Clothing for Heroes and then World’s Conclude as Westwood’s passions moved away from the punk scene.
Associates of bands which includes Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Slits had been affected by her trend, and Viv Albertine of the Slits wrote in her memoir, “Vivienne and Malcolm use dresses to shock, irritate and provoke a reaction but also to inspire transform. Mohair jumpers, knitted on huge needles, so loosely that you can see all the way through them, T-shirts slashed and written on by hand, seams and labels on the outside, demonstrating the development of the piece these attitudes are reflected in the audio we make. It’s Okay to not be excellent, to show the workings of your daily life and your head in your music and your clothing.”
In addition to her fashion collections, she designed the uniforms for flight attendants from Virgin Atlantic and provided wardrobe for Elisabeth Shue in “Leaving Las Vegas” as perfectly as for “Shadowboxer” and “Twenty-A person.”
A 2018 documentary, “Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist” lined her lifestyle and perform, and she was portrayed in the Forex mini-collection “Pistol” by Talulah Riley. Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw character wore 1 of Westwood’s marriage costume creations in the film variation of “Sex and the Town.”
Westwood was a longtime political activist, performing to struggle consumerism, defend the environment and protest triggers these kinds of as wage inequality.
She is survived by her husband, Andreas Kronthaler, and two sons.
