A it turns out, the fashion designer who is defining 2023 bowed out just before the year started. Vivienne Westwood, who died on 29 December, was the buzziest name at the shows this season. Marc Jacobs kicked off the New York catwalks with a collection dedicated to her; a memorial service at Southwark Cathedral was the headline event of London fashion week. Her own label, now designed by her husband Andreas Kronthaler, brought the love to Paris with a show that closed with her granddaughter, Cora Corré, as fashion’s traditional bride – although, this being Westwood, the bride wore a hotpant-length wedding dress and sparkly devil horns.
But the real tributes to the godmother of punk are happening on the street. Everywhere I look I see Westwood. I don’t mean literally, not ghosts, not Fragonard corsets in Tesco. But the remembering of Westwood has reminded me – reminded all of us – that she isn’t just fashion history. She is fashion. And the best tribute to Westwood, it seems to me, is to be a bit more Westwood.
You are already more Westwood than you think you are. Let’s talk about pearls, for instance. I would wager that you wear the odd pearl earring (potentially mismatched), or perhaps a string of pearls layered casually with a gold chain. Maybe you have a cardigan with big fake pearl buttons. Very good. If you stopped to think about how pearls became cool and modern, you might think it was a Gucci thing. Or a Harry Styles thing. Well, let me stop you right there. Westwood put pearls in a racy modern context on her catwalk – and on men, as well as women – in 1987. That’s right: 36 years ago. So if you are rocking a pearl right now, tip your hat to Viv.
There are bits of Westwood percolating into clothes all around us. It starts, as fashion always does, with a silhouette. A Westwood Cocotte dress is an hourglass, which celebrates boobs and bum. But it is an hourglass with a difference, because the fabric is whorled and scrunched off-kilter, which gives it a rakish kind of grandeur. A Westwood dress somehow amplifies not just your body, but your personality as well. It squishes your waist but champions your soul.
Those off-the-shoulder necklines in rustling fabrics make you feel important, as if you are a portrait, suspended in your very own gilt picture frame. And yet, at the same time, the twist and ripple of the fabric rips the formality from it.
There is a thousand times more flesh-and-blood sensuality in one off-the-shoulder, corset-waisted Westwood dress than in an entire Victoria’s Secret catwalk show. The spirit of a Westwood party dress is that the dress itself, however beautiful, is not what matters. The dress is a superhero cape to send you out into the night to have the best possible time.
There is no timeline to the Westwood look. Punk is not a trend that can be neatly filed away in the 1970s; it is street style itself. A pirate boot – her clompy flat boot with buckled straps running up the leg – has as much swagger now as it did in 1981. A tartan miniskirt, or a kilt, is British history and tradition, and British rebellion and dissent, all at once.
And a platform shoe is just as eye-catching – also, sadly, just as tricky to walk in – as it was when Naomi Campbell took a tumble on Westwood’s runway in 1993.
“Fashion is life-enhancing, and I think it’s a lovely, generous thing to do for other people.” Well said, Vivienne. Let’s keep that spirit alive – this year, and for ever.
Model: Lilly Bridger at Body London. Hair and makeup: Carol Morley at Carol Hayes Management. Dress: Norma Kamali from Matches Fashion. Leather jacket: Mango
