Punk provocateur Vivienne Westwood was called many names in her career, among them Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. That’s right. The fashion designer who stripped naked for PETA and visited Buckingham Palace without her knickers was a Dame and to many the 'Queen of Extreme'.

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Vivienne was never one for propriety or modesty, ensuring her glorious career as a fashion designer and troublemaker hijacked countless column inches for her work and her causes - and she certainly had many causes, chief among them her environmental activism to save the planet. Vivienne once showed up at 10 Downing Street with a box of asbestos as a gift for the prime minister to protest fracking. 
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Vivienne Westwood: Superhero activist

She also tackled restrictive gender norms, industrial farming, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and Scottish independence before her death in December 2022 at the age of 81.

Back in 2013, Vivienne recruited Wikileaks whistleblower Julian Assange and others for Greenpeace’s Save the Arctic campaign. Sixty celebrities were photographed wearing Vivienne’s organic, unbleached T-shirts. Their portraits were then strategically placed at a London train station, decorating the wall of an escalator that led up to Shell Petroleum’s HQ.

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The Queen of Punk

She was born Vivienne Swire in 1941 in Cheshire, England during World War II. Her family had a modest income - her father worked as a storekeeper in an aircraft factory. Vivienne took jewelry and silversmith courses but dropped out of art school after one term, saying: "I didn't know how a working-class girl like me could possibly make a living in the art world."

She trained to be a primary school teacher instead. The future seemed cut and dried when the 21-year-old married a factory worker and, a year later, gave birth to their son Ben. So what happened?

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Vivienne Westwood meets the Sex Pistols

Vivienne met her match in Malcolm McLaren - impresario, visual artist, singer, songwriter, musician, clothing designer, and band manager for the Sex Pistols.

The band's Anarchy In The UK hit the headlines in 1970s and God Save The Queen followed. A punk revolution was underway. The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and X-Ray Spex were blaring on the radio. The streets of London were buzzing with Mohawks, safety pins, and a lot of attitude. Vivienne

Westwood was in her element.
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Vivienne Westwood's revolution

Vivienne and Malcolm shared an interest in rebellion and 1950s clothing, music, and memorabilia. She began designing ‘Teddy Boy’ clothes and they opened Let it Rock, a shop on Kings Road in Chelsea, back then a hub of fashionistas and creatives. The Sex Pistols were fans of her designs, wearing them onstage, and Vivienne’s reputation soared.

The designer’s interests soon turned to biker clothing, zips, and leather and the shop was rebranded with a skull and crossbones. They renamed it Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die.

Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm designed T-shirts with provocative messages, which led to their prosecution under obscenity laws. They responded by producing even more hard core images. By 1974, the shop was call ‘Sex’ with the slogan ‘Rubberwear for the office’.

As Viv Albertine recalled: "Vivienne and Malcolm use clothes to shock, irritate and provoke a reaction but also to inspire change.” 
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God Save the Queen ‍

The Sex Pistol’s anthem God Save the Queen - satirizing the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977 - was number one on the charts and refused air time by the BBC, driving the band’s popularity into the stratosphere. The shop reopened as Seditionaries, transforming the straps and zips of sexual fetishism into fashion. Inevitably, however, the Sex Pistols fell out, the band broke up in 1978, and Punk went mainstream.

Vivienne Westwood wasn’t interested in conforming though. Vivienne and Malcolm parted ways in the ‘80s and Vivienne came into her own as a fashion designer. She dubbed her 1981-85 period ‘New Romantic’ and 1988-91 as ‘The Pagan Years’. 

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Vivienne Westwood: the Iron Lady of fashion

Vivienne had more time for political and environmental causes now. In addition to expressing her anti-establishment views through fashion, Westwood stood up to power, memorably posing on the cover of Tatler as British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, accompanied by the words: ‘This woman was once a punk'. Her aim was to mock the PM’s fiscal policies which Vivienne considered a ‘pyramid scheme’. 

“The suit I wore had been ordered by Margaret Thatcher from Aquascutum, but she had then canceled it,” the designer wrote in her published diary Get a Life. “This cover for Tatler was blown up on billboards during London Fashion Week - even I had to look twice to believe it was me.”
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Superhero environmental campaigner

For much of her life, Vivienne devoted her time to championing the environment and calling for action on climate change.

‘VOTE GREEN’ was emblazoned across the top of the show notes at Vivienne Westwood’s Red Label AW15 show.

The manifesto went on to say that we are currently “controlled by the 1% of the world population who are in power. They preach consumption, and they preach war, and they’re taking us into disaster. We are in incredible danger. There is no point in voting for the others.” Vivienne also reportedly donated £300,000 to the Green Party.

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Vivienne Westwood: activist and fashion legend

Dame Vivienne Westwood was Cool Earth’s most committed supporter, donating more than £1.5m to the mission. She also partnered with not-for-profit organization Canopy in an initiative to combat deforestation.

Her fashion brand reflected her ideals. Her leather, for example, is sustainably sourced from Kenya, and for more than 10 years Vivienne worked in collaboration with the UN and the World Trade Organization to encourage the growth of ethical businesses in Africa.

So, after seven decades of campaigning and speaking truth to power, did Vivienne Westwood have any advice for young activists? “Buy less, choose well: that's the maxim. Quality not quantity. That's the most environmentally friendly thing you can do.”

As for fashion and accessorizing: “A status symbol is a book. A very easy book to read is The Catcher in the Rye. Walk around with that under your arm, kids. That is status.”