Alain Bouched Leather Motorcycle Jackets

Harris Tweed Scotland

Life and Career of Vivienne Westwood

Surveying the life and career of Vivienne Westwood is, as Westwood herself has described it, like trying to get a ship into a bottle, for her story is an extraordinary one. She was a central figure in the London Punk movement in the mid 1970s and has gone from being a subversive shop owner to a pillar of the British fashion establishment. As an independent female in a highly competitive industry she has survived without compromising her ideals. Her vision has at times been at odds with the rest of the fashion world, yet her work has often been prescient. She has provoked outrage, amusement and ultimately respect. Her overriding gift to fashion is a conviction that clothing can change the way people think. She once said: ‘I think that the real link that connects all my clothes is this idea of the heroic'. As a self-taught designer, Westwood has brought an utterly original slant to fashion, and been responsible for many fashion ideas that are now taken for granted. Although her clothes are often revolutionary, she has embraced traditional British fabrics and materials, and made them her own. While her work in the 1980s, post Punk, was wildly eclectic, the dominant theme of the 1990s was historicism. Westwood is ambitious for her craft. She has great faith in fashion as personal propaganda, as mental and physical stimulation, saying ‘clothes can give you a better life'.

Vivienne Westwood was born in Derbyshire in 1941. Her family moved to London when she was a teenager and in 1965 she met art student Malcolm McLaren. Their working relationship lasted from 1970 until 1983, and memorably launched Punk. Fashion became for Westwood ‘a baby I picked up and never put down'. Between 1971 and 1981 the couple ran a shop at 430 Kings Road in London which became the centre of the emerging Punk movement.

In 1982 Women's Wear Daily described London as ‘a teeming fashion market-place buzzing with ideas. They bounce off the streets and out of the prodigious art colleges'. That year Westwood and McLaren launched their second collection, Savage (Spring/Summer 1982), which featured geometric American Indian patterns. Although the balance of Westwood and McLaren's creative partnership was changing, Vivienne still consulted Malcolm. She said at the time: ‘He edits my work, sorts out my story, unscrambles my programming and gives me an avenue of approach'. The third collection, Buffalo (Autumn/Winter 1982–83, also called Nostalgia of Mud, featured sheepskin jackets and big swirling skirts. Westwood exhorted her fans to ‘Take your mother's old brassiere and wear it undisguised over your school jumper and have a muddy face'. Like many of her fashion ideas, the bra worn on the outside was soon picked up by other fashion designers. Westwood was now on the Paris fashion circuit and Buffalo was followed by Punkature (Spring/Summer 1983), a futuristic interpretation of Punk. It introduced the tube skirt, one of Westwood's most successful and commercial designs.

In 1984 Westwood moved briefly to Italy with her new business partner, Carlo D'Amario (today Managing Director of her company) and most of her ‘ready-to-wear' is still produced there today. She designed Hypnos (Spring/Summer 1984) which featured sleek garments made out of synthetic sports fabric in fluorescent pinks and greens, anticipating later trends in sportswear. The Hypnos collection was selected to be shown in Tokyo at Hanae Mori's Best of Five global fashion awards. By the mid 1980s, Westwood's self-taught tailoring skills converged with her increasing interest in British traditional clothing in the humorous Mini-Crini and Harris Tweed collections (Spring/Summer 1985, Autumn/Winter 1987–88) The crini was a short, full skirt with plastic boning, inspired by the 19th-century crinoline and also by a ballet performance which Westwood had seen. She said: ‘Even if you're on a crowded tube, it always springs back after being squashed'. For summer, it was made in printed cotton with polka dots and stripes and teamed with cotton twin sets by the long-established British company John Smedley. The winter version was in bright red Harris Tweed, hand-woven in the Western Isles of Scotland. It was worn with a matching jacket with velvet collar, inspired by the traditional double-breasted children's coat. Westwood said ‘I'm not really trying to be English — you can't avoid it, it's what you've absorbed. I do have fun knowing that I am doing it. I very much enjoy parody and this English sort of lifestyle … and I really am in love with the fabrics'. She has continued to draw international attention to British fabrics, including tartan, throughout her career and was awarded the Queen's Award for Export Achievement in 1998. The Harris Tweed collection also launched the corset, which Karl Lagerfeld described as one of the most important fashion ideas of the 20th century.

About the Author

Production of Harris Tweed $49.99 Production of Harris Tweed - Giclee Print

Seasons on Harris $10.99 The Outer Hebrides of Scotland epitomize the evocative beauty and remoteness of island life. The most dramatic of all the Hebrides is Harris, a tiny island formed from the oldest rocks on earth, a breathtaking landscape of soaring mountains, wild lunarlike moors, and vast Caribbean-hued beaches. This is where local crofters weave the legendary Harris Tweed—a hardy cloth reflecting the strength, durability, and integrity of the life there. In Seasons on Harris , David Yeadon, "one of our best travel writers" ( The Bloomsbury Review ), captures, through elegant words and line drawings, life on Harris—the people, their folkways and humor, and their centuries-old Norse and Celtic traditions of crofting and fishing. Here Gaelic is still spoken in its purest form, music and poetry ceilidh evenings flourish in the local pubs, and Sabbath Sundays are observed with Calvinistic strictness. Yeadon's book makes us care deeply about these proud islanders, their folklore, their history, their challenges, and the imperiled future of their traditional island life and beloved tweed.

South Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, UK $24.99 Patrick Dieudonne South Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, UK - Photographic Print

Frozen Pond, Harris, Western Isles, Scotland $19.99 Oliviero Olivieri Frozen Pond, Harris, Western Isles, Scotland - Photographic Print

Harris Tweed (Hardcover) $48.52 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.For information about the making of Harris Tweed, am grateful to: Janet Hunter, The Islanders and the Orb (Acair Ltd, 2001); various newspaper articles and library leaflets; the British Wool Marketing Board; and the Harris Tweed Authority.While making this book I spent time with many weavers, mill workers, farmers and crofters, tailors and pattern cutters, and I would like to thank them all for being so helpful and encouraging and for allowing their photographs to appear in this book.I am grateful to Lady Anne Dunmore, the Society of Authors, the Hosking Houses Trust, Alan Baine, the Doune Braes Hotel in Carloway and Rapid Eye Processing in London for their support for this extended portrait project, which allowed me to make it as detailed as possible.I would like to thank Guy Hills, Deryck Walker, Sara Berman, Paul Smith, Vivienne Westwood, Judith Clarke and Margaret Howell for providing text and pictures for the fashion section on pages 122--7.I would also like to thank with great admiration Maria Charalambous for her wonderful graphic eye; Anne Askwith for putting my grammar in order; and Andrew Dunn, who believed in this publication right from the beginning of my enthusiasm to make a book about this fabulous industry.Lastly I would like to thank Patrick Grant for kindly writing the foreword and Guy Hills for writing the introduction to the fashion section.

Stockinish Harbour on the Isle of Harris, Hebrides, Scotland, UK $24.99 Nadia Isakova Stockinish Harbour on the Isle of Harris, Hebrides, Scotland, UK - Photographic Print

Seilebost Beach, Isle of Harris, Hebrides, Scotland, UK $24.99 Nadia Isakova Seilebost Beach, Isle of Harris, Hebrides, Scotland, UK - Photographic Print

Harris, Western Isles, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe $19.99 Oliviero Olivieri Harris, Western Isles, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe - Photographic Print

Island of Harris, Western Isles, Scotland, United Kingdom $19.99 Oliviero Olivieri Island of Harris, Western Isles, Scotland, United Kingdom - Photographic Print

Sound of Taransay, South Harris, Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe $24.99 Patrick Dieudonne Sound of Taransay, South Harris, Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe - Photographic Print

North Harris Hills Near Govig, Sheep and Lochan, North Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland $24.99 Patrick Dieudonne North Harris Hills Near Govig, Sheep and Lochan, North Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland - Photographic Print

Sunset over the Sound of Taransay, South Harris, Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, United Kingdom $24.99 Patrick Dieudonne Sunset over the Sound of Taransay, South Harris, Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, United Kingdom - Photographic Print

Dusk View across Open Water Towards Taransay and North Harris, Isle of Harris, Scotland $24.99 Lee Frost Dusk View across Open Water Towards Taransay and North Harris, Isle of Harris, Scotland - Photographic Print

Taransay and the Isle of Hills of North Harris from Borve Beach, Isle of Harris, Scotland $24.99 Lee Frost Taransay and the Isle of Hills of North Harris from Borve Beach, Isle of Harris, Scotland - Photographic Print

Sheep on Rocky Outcrops of Forest of Harris, North Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, United Kingdom $24.99 Patrick Dieudonne Sheep on Rocky Outcrops of Forest of Harris, North Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, United Kingdom - Photographic Print

Sound of Taransay, North Harris Hills in Background, South Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, UK $24.99 Patrick Dieudonne Sound of Taransay, North Harris Hills in Background, South Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, UK - Photographic Print

Sheep, Rocky Outcrops of Forest of Harris, North Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, United Kingdom $24.99 Patrick Dieudonne Sheep, Rocky Outcrops of Forest of Harris, North Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, United Kingdom - Photographic Print

Luskentyre Bay, at Low Tide, West Coast of South Harris, Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland $24.99 Patrick Dieudonne Luskentyre Bay, at Low Tide, West Coast of South Harris, Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland - Photographic Print

Sunset over the Sound of Taransay, South Harris, Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, UK $24.99 Patrick Dieudonne Sunset over the Sound of Taransay, South Harris, Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, UK - Photographic Print