Vivienne Westwood: A Fashion Brand That is Never Going to Be Old
If you want to pick a few fashion brands that always gave grey matter a priority over craze, Vivienne Westwood would be one of them. The fashion brand over the years gained a reputation to deliver bold statement with its apparels while always being true to the basics and elementary. This becomes particularly apparent when its founder figure and celebrated fashion thinker Vivienne Westwood herself tells us to buy less and buy quality fashion stuff.
But, such values in the fashion world just do not come overnight. They have resulted from a long haul of experiments and creative outbursts spanned over decades. People in their fifties now can remember how Vivienne Westwood stormed into the fashion scene with a set of new values for wearables and accessories. Over the years, those values found a permanent place in the annals of the fashion industry.
To understand the length and gravity of this fashion brand’s influence we should see into its history and the journey that helped to make this powerful fashion brand.
The famous British Designer who has been the visionary behind Vivienne Westwood is Vivienne Swire. Born in 1941 in Glossop of Derbyshire she displayed her out of the box test for fashion in early teens. At just 17 she started studying fashion and instead of doing a job in any of the garment manufacturer factory, she decided to pursue her interest alone while supporting herself financially with a teacher’s job. Around this time she also began creating her own jewellery and began selling them from a stall in Portobello Road.
In 1961 she met her soulmate Derek Westwood and in 1962 they were married. In the marriage ceremony, Vivienne wore her own handcrafted dress. Within a few years, their marriage ended as Vivienne Westwood became romantically engaged with another fashion designer Malcolm Mclaren which eventually led to her second marriage. This relationship would have a considerable bearing on the grooming of her as a fashion designer and creator of a fashion brand.
In 1971, both of them opened a new fashion shop at Kings Road. But during those days, both of them were inclined towards biker’s clothing’s comprising all sorts of stuff like zips and leather outfits. The shop soon began to sport a rebel infused 70’s fashion statement that says “Too fast to live, Too Young to die”.
In 1976, the Punk Rock band Sex Pistol released a famous single called “God Save the Queen” which was managed by McLaren and portrayed the fashion elements that were famously termed as “obscure sexual fetishism”. This new fashion theme and taste belonging to Punk Rock inspired generation gave Vivienne’s fashion taste a kind of sublime twist that she would celebrate in later years through her creation.
Vivienne was slowly finding her foothold as a visionary fashion designer and in 1980 her shop was transformed once again with the name ‘World’s End’. In the following year, Vivienne organised her first catwalk show themed as “The Private Collection”. The show took a permanent place in the annals of the British Fashion Industry as rocked the fashion scene with a fresh romantic taste.
Throughout the following years, Vivienne continued to experiment with various looks, materials and themes and many of her outputs grabbed the attention of celebrities and fashion enthusiasts worldwide. The signature charm of her garments were continued to create a new epoch in fashion. But it was during 1988 and 1989 that one of her most celebrated range named “Time Machine” was out. It was a gorgeous range of apparels made from tweed and tartan.
In 1992, she received OBE award from Queen Elizabeth II for her outstanding contribution as a British fashion designer.
During 1993 and 1994 she launched a famous collection called Anglomania. It was created to portray the exchange of fashion tastes and ideas between England and Europe. French were in love with this collection as it brought to them the mastery of English tailoring and spontaneous county taste in fashion.
In 2008, her designer wedding dress was featured in the famous movie “Sex and the City”. In 2012, Vivienne Westwood came with her new designer watch collection naming it with the old fashion theme of “Time Machine”. It is a homage to the original Time Machine fashion that saw these watches appear with a tweed look. You can find this watch range in Tic Watches. The watches are Swiss made and bear her instantly recognisable logo The Orb.
