Fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood has died at the age of 81

The pioneering fashion designer made a name for himself on the fashion scene in the 1970s, with his androgynous designs, slogan t-shirts, and irreverent attitude towards the establishment.

Dame Vivienne died on Thursday peacefully, surrounded by her family in Clapham, south London, her representatives said.

In a statement, her husband and creative partner Andreas Kronthaler said: I will continue with Vivienne in my heart.

We have worked until the end and he has given me a lot to work on. Thank you darling.

Dame Vivienne, who was born in Cheshire in 1941, is largely accepted as being responsible for bringing punk fashion and new wave to the mainstream with her eccentric creations.

The designs are regularly worn by famous people including Dita Von Teese who wore a purple Westwood wedding dress to marry Marilyn Manson, and Princess Eugenie who wore three Westwood designs for various elements of William and Kate Middleton’s wedding.

Dame Vivienne’s designs were also featured in the 2008 film adaptation of Sex And The City, starring Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw.

In addition to her work as a designer, Dame Vivienne has been outspoken in supporting a number of social and political initiatives including campaigning for the release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is fighting to avoid being sent to the US to face charges under the Espionage Act.

In July 2020, Dame Vivienne sounded the alarm over Assange’s stitching while wearing canary yellow in a giant birdcage.

Dame Vivienne led a group of protesters chanting Free Julian Assange outside the Old Bailey in central London.

Suspended in a cage, he said: Don’t extradite Assange, it’s stitches.

During London Fashion Week in 2012, she hit the catwalk alone, swathed in a banner reading the climate revolution and carrying a lot of flesh underneath.

Speaking before her show, which comes on day three of London Fashion Week, she said showing her clothes only gave her a platform to talk about climate change.

It’s my job and it gives me a reason, he said.

Before we had a class war, we were rich against poor, do you know what the division is now? That’s idiots against environmentalists. There she is.

That same year, attending a reception at St James’s Palace to launch a new exhibition of British menswear at an event hosted by the then Prince of Wales, Dame Vivienne said much of her respect for the Royal Family was due to Charles.

She said: I’m a huge Queen fan, I think she’s amazing and everyone agrees with that opinion.

But I think a large part of my respect for the royals is based on Prince Charles, he has done a lot better for the country than any British politician.

As the self-styled queen of punk, she has always been injecting controversy into the fashion industry with her risqué creations.

The designer was largely responsible for anti-establishment punk fashion and was known for his subversive and eccentric take on the traditional British style.

She and Malcolm McLaren, former manager of the punk band Sex Pistols, opened a shop called Let It Rock (also known as Sex) in the early 1970s where she began selling her outrageous outfits.

Punk styles include bondage gear, safety pins, razor blades, bicycle or restroom chains and spiked dog collars.

The style icon caused a stir in 1992 when she took her OBE from the Queen minus her underwear and twirling the pages to reveal it all.

In 2006 when she was made a Dame, she again chose not to wear panties and headed to Buckingham Palace wearing a pair of silver horns.

Describing her outfit on the day a black hat was perched behind her bright orange hair and a black dress with campaign badges and a small horn on her head, she said it showed her both as an urban guerrilla and a Che Guevara figure.

He explained: I should be a bit like Che Guevara, an urban guerrilla, with my hat, this kind of jungle net, and the badge for my Active Resistance to Propaganda campaign.

Some of her most famous creations include Mini Crini, bustle-skirts, bondage pants, and 12-inch platform shoes, the type that supermodel Naomi Campbell tripped over.

She developed the idea of ​​underwear as outerwear and Madonna’s legendary cone-shaped bra worn on her Blonde Ambition tour, designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, might never have happened were it not for Westwood.

He also transformed the corset from a symbol of female oppression to a symbol of sexual power and freedom.

After becoming a primary school teacher, he quit his job to become a punk fashion tailor and opened his shop on Chelsea’s Kings Road with his then partner McLaren.

The Sex Pistols wore shop outfits for their first show and Westwood’s first runway show presented at the Olympia in London in March 1981.