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Vivienne Westwood by Vivienne Westwood and Ian Kelly: book review



Vivienne Westwood (2014) is part memoir and part biography of the British icon of fashion. It is not really “co-written” by Westwood – it is more “as spoken to Kelly” because her words are in quotations. But they are extensive. Kelly adds detailed commentaries and summaries of her conversations with him. In addition there are lengthy quotations from associates, her brother Gordon, her two sons Ben (from her first husband Derek Westwood) and Joe (from her second relationship with Malcom McLaren). For some readers this may detract from the flow, but I found it okay except for a few times when I had to check who was making the comments.

The book commences with the 2014 Paris week before starting from the beginning (1941) – from then onwards it is a chronological memoir. It sets the scene of the early 1960s at a time when her first husband briefly managed musicians before most were famous, such as The Who, John Lennon, and Eric Clapton – all emerged from art schools, as Vivienne did. It was a time of the “crossover from art to music and from graphics to sales and marketing … into running businesses that fused pop iconography, fashion, music, and happenings.”

After a brief marriage to Derek, it was her relationship with Malcolm McLaren (her brother’s friend) to 1979 that was intrinsic to her fame. McLaren, the provocative British musician, artist, and band manager of Sex Pistols, brought anarchy, radicalism, and “a restive atmosphere” to Westwood. The volatile relationship also brought a “safe island of creative complicity.” Hence Westwood’s punk period began, as did their iconic shop at 430 Kings Road, “the epicentre of a global fashion revolution.” It was where they reinvented and rebranded fashion, starting with embellishments, slogans, and graphics on T-shirts.

The book details the shop, the clothes, the cuttings, the designs, the partnerships, the journey, the “power to disturb” and the “politicization of clothing.” While many viewed it as the “sexually ambiguous fusion of world-worn … razor-sharp mod, threatening rocker … and safety pins” others viewed it as “degenerate, puerile and willfully ugly.” The book continues with the business, the expansions, the designing, and the making of the fashion.

Vivienne Westwood, the maverick ideas person, was on her own from 1982. While her designs were having a wider impact she “needed to find better, faster and more responsive manufacturers.” During her Italian period she added her name to her designs, and a logo. Her dictum was now, “the more creative you are the more you need a structure.” She moved into her collections and high culture period, as well as human and ecological activism.


The book concludes with her relationship with her husband, designer, and creative partner Andreas Kronthaler, twenty-five years her junior. It tells of their first meeting in 1989 when she was 48 and he was her 23-year-old student. Kronthaler gives a detailed account of his impression the very second he saw her. The rest is history.





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