Fashion Legend Vivienne Westwood Dies at 81

Designer Vivienne Westwood, who galvanized British fashion and brought elements of punk and new wave style to the mainstream with her designs beginning in the 1970s, died in Clapham, South London on Thursday, according to a tweet from her eponymous fashion label’s official account. She was 81. A cause of death was not disclosed, though the statement said she died “peacefully and surrounded by family.” 

“The world needs people like Vivienne to make a change for the better,” the tweet continues. 

Her husband and creative partner, Andreas Kronthaler, released a statement, saying, “I will continue with Vivienne in my heart.” 

“We have been working until the end and she has given me plenty of things to get on with. Thank you darling,” he added.

Born Vivienne Isabel Swire in Cheshire, England on April 8, 1941, Westwood moved with her family to Harrow, Greater London, in 1954. She took a metalsmithing course, but soon dropped out and began working in a factory, and then as a schoolteacher. She also made jewelry that she sold in a stall on London’s Portobello Road. After a brief marriage to factory apprentice Derek Westwood, and the birth of their son, Benjamin, the chapter of Westwood’s life that made her a provocative public figure in the decades to follow began: She met Malcolm McLaren, manager of the punk band The Sex Pistols. She began designing clothes with McLaren, which the band wore, and the two ran a boutique called SEX on London’s King’s Road. It closed in 1976, but the shop was a meeting place for prominent punks, and its wares were attention-grabbing fashion statements unlike anything street fashion had seen. 

Viv Albertine, guitarist for the punk band The Slits, once wrote that “Vivienne and Malcolm use clothes to shock, irritate, and provoke a reaction but also to inspire change.” Sweaters knit so loosely that they were see-through, seams and labels visible on ripped-up, defaced t-shirts, an insouciant attitude, translated sartorially. Punk, as demonstrated through pants. “These attitudes are reflected in the music we make,” Albertine wrote. “It’s OK to not be perfect, to show the workings of your life and your mind in your songs and your clothes.”