Punk Fashion Icon Dame Vivienne Westwood Dies At Age 81

Vivienne Westwood, the fashion icon credited with imaging the Punk movement of the 70s, has died at the age of 81 in the UK.

Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren founded the SEX clothing store in King’s Road, London in the 1970s as McLaren was manufacturing his punk band The Sex Pistols. Westwood and McLaren son Joseph Corre is the founder of clothing brand Agent Provocateur.

Westwood expanded the clothing empire to four London stores and then took her brand across the UK.

Dame Vivienne was awarded the OBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1992 and the upgrade to dame in 2006.

Westwood was an activist supporting Campaign for Nuclear Disarmanet, PETA, World Water Day and the clean energy Trillion Fund. She has also been a longtime supporter for the release of Julian Assange.

Culture icons around the world have today paid tribute to Dame Vivienne Westwood.

Duran Duran

“I don’t know where to begin expressing my sadness at the death of Vivienne Westwood. The Greatest of all Time English fashion designers? Certainly the most original and influential. Without her no Punk, no Pistols and no Future. And a truly lovely lady who never compromised. There will not be another like her. There is rarely a day that Vivienne doesn’t influence some clothing choice that I make. Who shall we look to now?” – John, December, 2022, New York

Yoko Ono

Rest in peace, Vivienne. What a woman – so young at heart, motivated, beautiful and elegant. Our love and deepest condolences go out to Andreas, Ben, Joseph and families. Love, yoko

Jamie Lee Curtis

In 1983 I dated Adam Ant for about a year during his tax exile. He once went to London and World’s End and brought me back a massive box of clothing from @viviennewestwood Vivienne Westwood. I was raised in a very conservative household, my stepfather was a Marine and my mother, a good girl and this box of clothes that looked like a pirate would wear them delighted and terrified me. It was avant-garde and punk and dangerous and rebellious, not one of those words that you would apply to me and yet I gamely tried to wear them. Years later, my hairdresser, @seanjameshair re-introduced me to the love of Westwood and I’ve been able to watch her magic through him for all of these years. Boy, do I wish I had those clothes today. A true icon. A talented dame.

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