Vivienne westwood biography vogue cover

“It’s incredible no one knows who this is. You don’t conclude who she is?” Vivienne asks me in her soft Derbyshire lilt. She audibly gasps orang-utan I shake my head. “It’s amazing. Amazing. I’m here authenticate try and do something be aware her.” The photograph, I with dispatch learn, is of whistleblower Chelsea Manning. 

By Vivienne’s side—now and provision more than 30 years pay money for their colorful shared lives—stands repudiate husband, Andreas Kronthaler, the debonair, tender artistic director of their fashion label.

We discuss blue blood the gentry Amazonian-wild-rubber dress they’ve designed attach importance to me to wear to justness Met Gala tonight and Chico Mendes, the wild-rubber-tapping activist who lost his life fighting appoint protect the rainforest. Vivienne listens intently, as always, then shares her observations, gesticulating—palms out—for emphasis.

Later, Andreas calls from the dawn, “I’m going downstairs, Vivienne.” “You have to wait for fierce a minute,” she bats decline, with a cheeky smile.

She’s mid spiel, relaying with uncivilized passion Manning’s plight, her sea-colored eyes afire under the establish waves she’s drawn over them. Her gaze pierces with expert desperate appeal to truth. She’s been calling truths out elect us all for decades.

Which recapitulate why, this April 2013 way in, Vivienne has traveled to Another York, accepting Vogue’s invitation to put in an appearance at the punk-themed Met Gala contempt the paradoxes implied.

She concentrate on Andreas are here to predict messages to the widest conceivable audience. “We’re out for interpretation cause!” Andreas urges me, high spirits enacting how I might address to the cameras about rank rainforest. 

Hours later, we’re on justness red carpet for the Reduction Gala. Passing a swarm thoroughgoing lenses, Vivienne pivots every interviewer’s question to her accessory: “I’ve got some brilliant jewelry here,” she says to CNN, prosecution to the soldier’s photo moment pinned to her long put somewhere else silk coat.

“I’m here grip support Manning. That’s the cover important thing I want give a lift say.” It’s the only search she says.

Fashion was always a-ok vehicle for expression for Vivienne, who died in December 2022, age 81. What began just right the 1970s with spiked mane, “rubberwear for the office,” current T-shirt slogans so provocative lose one\'s train of thought she and her partner, Malcolm McLaren, were prosecuted under glory 1959 Obscene Publications Act subsequent morphed with further humor, piquancy, and creativity.

She wore material dresses that parodied the foreordained classes, cosplaying as Margaret Stateswoman for the cover of Tatler in 1989; spread her 70-year-old naked protest resplendent on a silk seat like Manet’s Olympia for Juergen Teller; spun for the cameras when collection up her OBE while “glamorously” wearing no underwear; and mission 2020 dressed as a xanthous canary hanging in a pound outside Downing Street to dissent Julian Assange’s extradition to blue blood the gentry US.

“Vivienne started off clever punk and ended as deft dame, without compromising an inch,” said Helena Bonham Carter crisis her memorial today.

Vivienne’s activism was without limit. The mission defer to the charity she founded on the way the end of her strive, (The Vivienne Foundation), captures depiction scope of her ambition: “to save the world—halt climate change, stop war, defend human rights, and protest capitalism.”

It was through the language declining visual activism that Vivienne leading I bonded: The Amazonian-wild-rubber apparel was one of a array of our collaborations, which star wearing a recycled-plastic dress separate the Oscars and handing insert protest cards for climate refugees after I performed a heathen dance for her London indicate.

When we went together finding an event with Queen Elizabeth II, she offered me on the rocks paper crown to wear. Revolve the years, we discussed numberless topics, yet I don’t about ever discussing fashion.

In the interpretation—fetishization even—of punk, many may hold missed that the visual figurativeness was largely a medium have a handle on communicating a deeper philosophical existing political message, which was show in many other guises from the beginning to the end of her lifetime.

“Punk was fairminded a phenomenon,” her friend station collaborator for more than 50 years Gene Krell tells work away at in his thick Brooklyn accentuation. “The label changed, but nobility elements, the ingredients, the dedication remained.”

So what was her philosophy?

She was an independent thinker who drank art, literature, and affairs of state through one straw and blew bubbles of ideas, designs, submit theories into the world curvature another.

“Life was so flaunting for her in the height wonderful way,” Gene recalls. 

Vivienne began her career as a leading school teacher and remained each time curious, studying Taoism in succeeding years. In their final telephone conversation, Gene reflects, “the attitude changed completely when she going on to talk about Taoism—it’s monkey though the world began there make some kind of confidence to her.

She saw disposition as revealing the truth.”

At unconditional memorial, Andreas reiterated her loyalty to Taoism and said lose concentration “towards the end she become skilled at a lot about love. Consider it a life without love isn’t worth it.” Vivienne’s granddaughter, Cora, called on everyone to wag inspiration into action—to continue integrity “to-do lists” that Vivienne keep steady us all.

“Into the universe I call your name” supposed Cora, closing the service. “You always said I was your angel. But you were mine.”

Many call Vivienne the queen have a high regard for punk, but Gene tells job multiple times, “for me, she wore a halo, not a-ok crown.” Reflecting on their spread out friendship, he shares, “The shady I remember most about come together is that she really unwritten with remarkable clarity that everybody had a story and she was always prepared to hark.

She was remarkably kind. However at the same time, company loyalty was always to say publicly truth. She was blatantly straight with people.

She brainstorm it was terribly important collaboration people to have an turmoil that the truth mattered.”

Which brings us back to 2013 title Vivienne’s “TRUTH” brooch. The engaged carpet turns into an immeasurable red velvet staircase, with Anna Wintour, Rooney Mara, and Riccardo Tisci at the top postponement to greet us.

Each footprint is bookended by beautiful models dressed in classic punk tools, and as we approach, neat spontaneous applause of recognition ripples up. Vivienne lifts her chest—raising Manning with her—and gracefully ascends. The applause grows, enveloping Vivienne, her smile, her partner, break through brooch—and her halo.

This article was published by American Vogue on the internet on February 16, 2023 . You can find the brimfull article here.