Vivienne Westwood

 

(by Vivienne Westwood and Ian Kelly)

It is no secret that, ever since I read “From A to Biba” and “Quant by Quant”, there has been a special place in my daydreams for an assuredly idealised and somewhat chronologically inaccurate 1970s King’s Road, London.  I’ve often imagined  bobbing into  Biba for some knee-boots  and popping into Mary Quant for some pop-art makeup*. But until I read this bio/auto-bio, I never, but never, envisaged wandering into Dame Vivienne’s “Worlds End” store on that same blue-skyed Saturday morning.  Perhaps because it is in such  a different world altogether from the non-challenging swinging London I have always imagined.  I really didn’t know that it (and its predecessors, “SEX” for one had even existed.  Punk had shops?  Who knew?). “Vivienne Westwood” by the woman herself and a journalist who doesn’t seem to have any real interest in fashion has set me right.  The book is not great literature – the  writing  is clunky and not fully synthesised – Westwood’s lengthy quotes are strung together with some breathless praise (and McLaren bashing).  I could have done with more about the process of design and more details about the actual — err — clothes, but if you are at all interested in fashion, twentieth-century London, punk or that sort of thing, this is a must-read.  (But skip the last rather preachy couple of chapters).  Mrs Westwood has apparently never suffered from a moment’s self-doubt or uncertainty about her own talent or peerless  moral goodness  which makes for an invigorating read but at times some rather dodgy product and an inconsistent human.

EXHIBIT A

My mother was an exacting dressmaker.   Although she has been embroidering angels’ robes while watching previously unseen episodes of “The House of Eliot” for about six months,  I can hear her shouting from here  about this “tailored’ Metropole  suit from the Westwood Label.  Not that you need it, but I have helpfully pointed out the worst bits.

 

EXHIBIT B

There’s just something wrong with them.

EXHIBIT C

They look wonderful….

 

Until an actual woman puts them on….

But there are the shoes…..perfect.

*(In fact I have a genuine Quant lipstick – silver white with the palest pink wash, now also tinged with green from age.  Although it came from David Jones, Rundle Mall and wasn’t sold to me by a Twiggy look-alike, I  can’t throw it out).