The Undisputed
Rebel Dame of Fashion
— Vivienne Westwood
Daring, radical, unique, and completely indomitable—Dame Vivienne Westwood has gotten us thinking about the clothes we wear and the ways we live our lives. She's one of Great Britain’s most influential and praised designers of all time, but even if it’s her career as a fashion designer that made her famous and is the reason behind her holding the title ‘Dame of the British Empire’, there’s something else occupying the majority of her thoughts.The panel discussion Vivienne Westwood held during the Bread & Butter festival by Zalando was completely sold out. People stood in line for hours outside in the hopes of a glimpse of the designer and activist. We flew down to Berlin and got an intimate chat with Vivienne Westwood about what she’s truly passionate about—the environment, particularly, climate change. She says it is her mantra, and the only reason she even does interviews.
With lips painted in red and green to symbolize how earth’s habitable space decreases, and a T-shirt with ‘BUY LESS’ handwritten across her chest, she talks about a world that is much more ideal than the world we live in today. How she would like to see the streets filled with people forcing their governments to take urgent action on climate change, which she says, is the global financial system's fault. “It has to happen now before it’s too late!”
And what a woman we meet—at the age of 76, she is still as engaged and committed to the anarchist ideology as she was when she, and her then-husband, Malcolm McLaren, first fought for a change in society’s status quo over four decades ago. “We hated the older generation”, she tells us, and for as long as she can remember she has fought for human rights.
“I come from the hippie generation that made us all politically engaged, but no one really thinks anymore, and consumption became our enemy. It was the culture that paved the road for human rights, so we have to talk about culture because if people don’t think, we’ll never be able to make the world a better place. When climate change escalates beyond control, which will happen soon, no one will be able to help anyone.”
Out of the many well-known quotes coined by the free-spoken environmental activist, there is one in particular that has stuck with most of us; “Buy less, chose well, make it last”.
“Buy less, chose well, make it last.”
— Vivienne Westwood
“My slogan is the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s everyone’s responsibility to do good and stop buying rubbish you don’t even like. Start refusing things and deal with yourself—don’t act like a baby and expect everything to be done for you. We’ve become completely infantile by consumption. No one takes the responsibility of making the world a better place, standing up for human rights”, she says.
And this lady is not afraid of speaking her mind, especially when it comes to environmental issues. “I hate seeing people, sometimes children as young as 14 years old, with a plastic cup in their hand, with a plastic lid, with some stupid soda inside, and a plastic straw that they just walk around sucking. It’s horrible. Refusing a straw is a metaphor, to stop sucking everything up, even culturally.”
What she means is that we have a tendency to take in and act based on what everyone else is doing. We need the latest technology, what's fashionable right now, and everything that’s on trend at the moment but later becomes boring.
“We’re always on the lookout for the new, the easy, instead of involving our personal thinking and daring to have a different opinion. That’s when we’re easily manipulated by fear and prejudice. We must dare to take a stand, so we don’t just suck up and absorb opinions, without having any ourselves. That’s why it’s so important to have a public opinion”, according to Vivienne.
She tells us about an interview she read in The Guardian with scientist James Lovelock, who said that it’s because of climate change that we will be reduced to only one billion people by the end of this century.
“It truly shocked me, and when that happens, no one will be able to do anything about it. It’s too late and you won’t even be able to help your own daughter. When the plants and animals are dead, there’s no way to replenish the earth again. Every fourth breath comes from the rainforest—what hit me when I heard that was, what we’re actually doing when we ravage the rainforest is cutting down lungs. So, the first thing I did was to donate £1 million to charity for the rainforests, which was all I could afford, even though I’m supposed to be this amazing fashion designer.”
Her mantra doesn’t only affect her ways of life, but it also reflects her work as a designer. She says that it’s not enough to just feel inspired and have an open mind, you have to learn the craft, the roots. “I want to create something that is both classic and sustainable. When it comes to environmental issues, she thinks all activists are inspired by the same thing—they feel empathy and cannot stand the thought of human suffering, and life being wasted because of our privileges.”
2011 she and photographer Juergen Teller flew to Africa together to work on her fall and winter collection—Ethical Fashion Africa. A project that involved thousands of local women who created bags for her brand with fair pay. Since 2013 she also collaborates with artists in Burkina Faso that make handwoven fabrics for her womenswear collections. She says that projects like this give people control over their own lives. “Charity doesn’t give control; they create the opposite effect and make people dependent instead.”
“Charity doesn’t give control; they create the opposite effect and make people dependent instead.”
According to Vivienne, the root of all evil is in the financial system. “The president of the United States of America—Donald Trump, maintains that system, but so did Barack Obama. And that won’t change if the system doesn’t change first.” She says it’s not their fault though. “They’re not the enemy, but they act as agents for the enemy by enabling the financial system. The solution is a free world economy and a green economy, which means what nature provides us with is free and can’t be owned by anyone.”
A change in the financial system won’t happen overnight though, and it can be hard knowing where to start without feeling like a grain of sand in a desert. But as Vivienne says; “everybody can do something, and nothing is ever too small.”
The biggest challenge lies in getting people involved. A small thing like switching over to renewable energy makes a big difference. It’s when one voice, together, becomes many, that we can make ourselves heard. Sustainability and how we consume have finally become a subject we discuss and take a stand on. Instead of being seen as something boring, more and more designers choose to work with sustainable alternatives and environmentally friendly manufacturing processes. All of that is only happening because we, the consumers, demand it.
Her final words to end our chat still echo with us; “All we have to do is take enough small steps for the next generation to have a chance to destroy the mass destruction we created”.