This article originally appeared in the December 2025 issue of Vogue Australia.
At Vivienne Westwood’s memorial service in 2023, on a gray February day on the eve of London Fashion Week, Helena Bonham Carter took to the pulpit in bolts of red tartan and a neck full of pearls. It was all Westwood, of course. For more than four decades, Bonham Carter has seldom worn any other designer. “She has given me my armor to face the world for so many years,” said the actor.
Milliner Stephen Jones, once a shy baby punk—“a real hick from the provinces”—too scared to cross the threshold of Westwood’s London boutique Sex, on the King’s Road in Chelsea, remembers Bonham Carter’s words well. “She got a round of applause. In a funeral!” Jones says. “Vivienne knew how to cut for a woman, and also how to make a woman feel sexy. She was a punk, but she also knew something about cutting and a woman’s body. She was brilliant.” Westwood was a pioneer and a protester, the dame of drape, a rebel and the cause. All her chaos, resistance and artistry will be on display at the National Gallery of Victoria’s Westwood | Kawakubo, which pairs Westwood with Rei Kawakubo, two fashion mavericks, for the first time.
Born in 1941 in Derbyshire, Vivienne Westwood learned to sew as a teenager, but began designing in earnest in the 1970s, one of the vanguard of the punk movement. “Punk really brought underground movements to the forefront, clashing subcultures with popular culture in a fashion that changed everything,” notes critic Alexander Fury. “That’s part of Westwood’s legacy.”
Her clothes were radical and unselfconscious: deconstructed T-shirts, seams unpicked and tied in knots at the shoulder; bondage trousers made from parachute material and fastened thigh to thigh; mohair net jumpers, laddered like a pair of ruined tights. Fashion was “a baby I picked up and never putdown,” she admitted in Jane Mulvagh’s 1998 biography Vivienne Westwood: An Unfashionable Life. In the 1970s, the fashion establishment refused to take her seriously, but it didn’t matter. Westwood was for the streets. “It was an incredible scene of rebellious youth,” remembers her contemporary Zandra Rhodes. “At [her boutique] World’s End in Chelsea, she would make her statement and all the youth would collect along that end.”
As Westwood put it in 2020: “Punk was a protest. [The clothes] said, ‘We don’t accept your taboos, we don’t accept your hypocritical life’.” Westwood lived that protest for the rest of her days. Each collection rippled with anarchic energy. In 1981, when silhouettes were razor sharp, Westwood debuted saggy-bottomed Pirate trousers. The autumn/winter ’87/’88 Harris Tweed collection was a paean to the textile, which was frumpily out of fashion at the time. In Westwood’s hands the sturdy fabric was rendered romantic and light, like morning mist over the heather. Later, she turned her runways into a revolution, protesting against fracking, climate change, and over-consumption. “She was a sensation,” declares Gwendoline Christie, who walked the runway for Westwood in 2015. “She was brave and cared nothing for your fear or the supposed rules. She was exacting, in art and in life.”
Christina Hendricks, another of her muses, remembers her as “intimidating, but loved when someone would spar with her a bit.”
“I remember so clearly the things she said—always direct, sometimes uncomfortable, but always true,” says Susie Cave, who was her star model for a decade. “That was her power—her fierce intelligence, her ability to challenge not only with words but with the very nature of her clothes.”
Jones, who made crowns for Westwood’s Harris Tweed collection using fabric off-cuts finished with felt marker spots—“well, we weren’t going to use ermine,” he says, drily—is crafting a suite of custom headpieces for the NGV’s exhibition. “Oh, she’d probably criticize them,” he says, laughing. “I’d absolutely listen to what she had to say, and then I would say, ‘Vivienne, I think it’s best like this.’ And then we’d arm wrestle about it.” Westwood died in December 2022, at the age of 81. There will never be another. Before her death, she established The Vivienne Foundation, a nonprofit led by her son Joe Corré, who she charged with continuing her work as an activist. Corré is not involved in the NGV’s exhibition, but chose to speak with Vogue about the enduring impact of his late mother. “When she turned up in a crowd of people to give a speech outside an embassy or outside Downing Street or at the end of her catwalk show, people knew she was going to say something,” Corré remembers. “It might make some people feel uncomfortable, but it was the truth that needed to be heard. It took a lot of courage to do that, but she never shied away from it. That’s the voice that not just I miss, but all the people I talk to miss. The amount of messages and letters I get with people saying we need Vivienne’s voice right now … Her voice is missing. Where has it gone?”
Kate Moss, Model
“Vivienne Westwood was the first label I bought as a teenager—you had to have something from Westwood in Croydon in the ’80s. I saved up for weeks and got myself a pair of faux-croc prostitute shoes in the sale. Vivienne was a rebel—she didn’t conform and she didn’t care what people thought. But she did care—she cared about the world and she cared about me. She was fabulous. I miss her and fashion isn’t the same without her.”
Juergen Teller, Photographer
“I’ve been working with Vivienne since the early ’90s. She was a brilliant person; very caring when she liked you, very difficult if she didn’t. Her work had incredible energy, whether it was her fashion work or caring about politics and the environment. She had an immense influence on the world. I miss her very much.”
Stephen Jones, Milliner
“She was a hero. She was doing everything differently. It wasn’t just about her clothes; it was her appearance, it was the way she moved. It was the whole 360 degrees of her, which was extraordinary and sort of challenging. You still see punks nowadays, and she was really the person who started it. Something came out in Women’s Wear Daily, asking who are the most important designers of the last 150 years? I said Coco Chanel, Christian Dior and Vivienne Westwood. I don’t know if people realize how much Vivienne changed people’s mentalities; not only the clothes, but the whole world she represented, of doing ‘the other’. Without Vivienne there would not be a John Galliano. Without Vivienne there would not be an Alexander McQueen. [Her legacy is] to challenge people. To do things in a different way.”
Susie Cave, Designer
“Her clothes dared you to wear them, to ride tall and proud against the stares of disdain, to step onto the street held high with the defiant cry: ‘This is who I am. Make way.’ Being chosen by Vivienne to work for her was the greatest honour. Those times with Vivienne, Andreas [Kronthaler] and, of course, Sara Stockbridge were unforgettable. Sara, who I thought was the greatest girl ever to walk the earth. I was in love with her, awed by her. I often played the man when we went out together—she was so utterly feminine and beautiful. I have a perfect image of her in my mind: a tiny black Vivienne mini-skirt and corset, white stockings, frilly lace knickers, her blonde hair in golden curls, walking down the King’s Road. Cars collided as she waved at them; people stopped in their tracks to gawp. The extreme sexiness of the cut of her clothes paired with the slogan on her T-shirt: ‘Truth loves to go naked.’
Vivienne was the wildest of them all. An unstoppable force who will continue to resonate through the fashion world now she is gone. Her shows were pure anarchy—sweet, thrilling chaos. Being part of them, so early in my career, transformed me, gave me a voice—just as she did for so many others—allowing me to become the person I wanted to be. She was the ship’s captain, our supreme leader, and we were her godless figureheads dressed in scandalous clothing. I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. They shaped me. More than that, they saved me.”
Bella Freud, Designer, and Host of “Fashion Neurosis”
“The main lesson I learned from Vivienne was not to be complacent—to never accept limitations in any aspect of the creation of garments, especially the manufacture. People would constantly say, ‘No, you can’t do that, it’s impossible.’ Then they were so delighted when it did work because she had made everyone go beyond their limitations, and it was thrilling for everyone. Vivienne was a patient and encouraging teacher, but also a rigorous taskmaster who didn’t hold back when she was unhappy with your work. It was quite useful, even though it was a bit shocking to be on the receiving end. She made you really try for things you knew people would not want to hear to get exactly what she wanted … People didn’t get how hard Vivienne worked, how much courage it took to keep this groundbreaking beautiful work without ever giving up. Working for her was a proper education that has never left me.”
Zandra Rhodes, Designer
“It’s still a very male-dominated industry. I think it’s rather wonderful that we are lucky enough to be a few women who have been able to make statements, and maybe that’s why the statements seem so strong, because a woman’s been able to make her voice heard. I think she was very genuine. She really felt, not just for the image of the clothes, but she held strong political views and she kept to them for most of her life. She made statements through the clothes, as well as what she was saying. She was strong and unapologetic about it.”
Gwendoline Christie, Actor
“Backstage at my first Westwood fashion show, Vivienne approached me and asked if I’d model for her. I could not believe my luck—it was exactly what I’d hoped. She told me I reminded her of Sara Stockbridge—high praise! Then began the voyage of opening up and sharing my honest views and opinions, because Vivienne could identify a fudged issue or platitude from a thousand miles away and you did not want to disappoint her, lie to her or miss out on the electricity of connection through just telling her the truth. I’d wanted to work with Vivienne ever since I could remember, but every moment of the relationship with her was deeper, more challenging and surprising than I could have ever predicted. Every moment was a sharp shock of exhilaration. What a holy gift.”
Ki Price, Photographer
“Vivienne was all about activism. The fashion was, for me, an afterthought. She would do a fashion show but use that as a protest. When I was photographing her, the message was so much more important than how she looked. She’d be like, ‘Ki, have you got the whole sign in?’ It was quite daunting [taking photographs of her] initially, because she was such a force of nature. She asked me what my deal was when I first met her on a [campaign] tour bus. I just sat down and gave her a very honest thing of who I was and what I was about. We never looked back.
She was a very curious human. She liked to learn. She never forgot a person’s name. She’d meet an assistant of mine and she’d see the assistant in a year’s time and would remember their name. You couldn’t blag her. I gave her a lift back to her home one day, and she spoke about Faust the whole way.
I remember, in Wales, doing that picture on the beach. I remember in the morning setting up that shoot. People were like, ‘Where’s Vivienne?’ ‘Oh, she’s gone for a walk. We dunno where she is.’ I think it’s amazing for such an iconic person to just wander off.”
Lily Cole, Model
“I loved Vivienne’s authenticity, her conviction and her courage. Her heart was wide open to the world, her mind was constantly trying to make sense of it, and she always spoke her truth. Vivienne started trends. Whether fashion or political, she was never one to follow others.”
Christina Hendricks, Actor
“It was one of my greatest honors to be chosen for her campaign. We hadn’t met and I was told she usually showed up for just a few photos and would leave. I was so nervous, and when she arrived she immediately started styling me. I’ll never forget she told hair and make-up that she wanted me to look like a freshly hatched chicken. With purple lipstick! She stayed all day, and we had so much fun. Then she invited me for drinks after, and we were friends after that. I couldn’t believe I was sitting there having a martini with Vivienne fucking Westwood! I admired her so deeply. She was the first designer I ever cared to know the name of. The first design images that stopped me in my tracks. I was wearing Vivienne-inspired clothing before I knew who to attribute it to. When I finally saw Kate Moss in Vogue wearing Westwood, I knew there was someone out there who understood what I thought was beautiful. That there was more to fashion than I had expected … Vivienne disrupted fashion. Turned it on its head. But was utterly undeniable because [of] the fit and the flattering nature of her garments. She changed the definition of beautiful.”
Steven Philip, Collector
“My first Westwood piece was a red and white autumn/winter ’81/’82 Pirate collection squiggle sash. I purchased it from World’s End. I made the trip specifically from Dundee [in Scotland]! I had to have a piece of the iconic squiggle—everyone was wearing it. I was drawn to Westwood and [Malcolm] McLaren initially through early i-D magazines. I remember looking at the street style in London, the music, politics. It was a London movement.”
Alexander Fury, Critic
“I think for many she represented the foibles of fashion—its craziness and excesses, the strange connections between themes and iconographies. But, for me, she’s representative of the very best of fashion: unbridled creativity, incredible imagination, and a refusal to follow the crowd. Westwood also has a vernacular of clothes, a vocabulary—she has her own shoe, her own jacket, her own jewelry, all identifiably hers, and enormously influential. Women still wear bustiers today as evening attire. The whole idea of ‘underwear as outerwear’ originated with Westwood. It’s very difficult to fully appreciate what she did, how radical and forward-thinking it was, because it’s now become part of our everyday.”
Westwood | Kawakubo opens at the National Gallery of Victoria with the NGV Gala on December 6, before opening to the public on December 7.