How Vivienne Westwood Influenced Modern Streetwear

Vivienne Westwood, the British luminary who molded punk’s type and redefined excessive vogue with subversion, wasn’t a formally educated dressmaker. Westwood, who died in December, began by promoting stylish clothes out of a boutique along with her romantic accomplice on the time, Malcolm McLaren. Their store, which modified names and ideas usually however remained at 430 Kings Highway, was an early predecessor to retailers like Union (aka the world’s “first” streetwear retailer). Westwood and McLaren opened Let It Rock in 1971 promoting classic rock ‘n’ roll clothes to “Teddy Boys,” a British youth subculture obsessive about American rock ‘n’ roll that emerged within the Nineteen Fifties. Evolving alongside British youth tradition, they rebranded the shop as Intercourse in 1974, after which Seditionaries in 1976. McLaren and Westwood’s store stocked types that outlined what a burgeoning punk subculture in London would put on earlier than the remainder of the world caught on.

“Malcolm and I modified the names and decor of the store to swimsuit the garments as our concepts developed. However punk didn’t imply something greater than that in the first place. I didn’t see myself as a dressmaker however as somebody who wished to confront the rotten established order by the best way I dressed and dressed others,” Westwood wrote in her 2014 self-titled memoir. “Ultimately this sequence of concepts culminated in punk.”

Westwood went from operating her unconventional clothes boutique on Kings Highway to changing into a world-class designer who exemplified the best of British fashion. She bridged French couture with conventional Savile Row tailoring, reimagined makes use of of heritage British materials like Tartan and Harris Tweed, and referenced every thing from the royal household to 18th-century European artwork along with her runway collections. Her clothes and corsets and signature pearl chokers are timeless and nonetheless being worn by celebs like SZA and Saweetie right now. 

In fact, Westwood was not alone when it got here to breaking typical avenue type by punk. Alex Michon—a Central St. Martin’s pupil who designed outfits for the Conflict—and the Situationist artwork motion additionally contributed to the punk motion alongside retailers like Ray Goodman’s Trash and Vaudeville in New York Metropolis. And whereas punk clearly influences the type of rappers like Lil Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti right now, one can’t overlook the numerous Black punk artists all through the ’70s resembling Death, Bad Brains, X-Ray Spex, and Pure Hell who additionally pushed their very own distinctive type ahead. However Westwood formed the look of punk rock and helped set up our modern understanding of streetwear, which is rooted in clothes that talk to area of interest and marginalized communities.