I came up with the idea of starting a new blog theme, about all the people that inspire me, in life and in my work.
The first couple I wanted to start with are Vivienne Westwood and Andreas Kronthaler. As you might already know, I am a fashion designer and am working on building my own brand. Vivienne has formed an early inspiration for me ever since I started my studying fashion.
Vivienne came out of a working class family. When she was very young she saw the picture of the crucified Jesus, that changed her. She felt like her parents betrayed her, because they only ever spoke to her about sweet, little baby Jesus. They never told her how his story would end. She felt like the people in this world couldn’t be trusted. She had to discover the truth on her own. This is something that I think is still visible in her work.
Vivienne started studying art, but after one semester she quit, because she worried about how she would be able to make money as an artist. She decided to become a teacher in art. That way she could still work on her art but also have an income.
Later she would start her own small shop together with her partner Malcolm, selling clothes and old Rock ‘n Roll records. Her partner at the time had the idea of creating a band, which included a few of their customers. That band would become known as The sex pistols.
Vivienne would design and create clothes for them, to wear on stage. I think these designs are still appearing very modern. Vivienne wanted to shock the world, break the system. Later she realized that all of it had just became part of all the noise in the world, and it didn’t really change anything. But actually, she created the Punk style, in the way we still know it today.
At that time Vivienne had a shop entirely for her clothing. The name of the shop would change from time to time, and so did the clothing in the shop. I think one of the most iconic names the shop had was SEX. Needless to say at that point the clothing was very much latex and fetish inspired. Latex for the office as they would say….
Eventually Vivienne would become intellectually bored Malcolm and she wanted to separate. Malcolm however, did not like that idea so much and he did everything he could to stop her from being successful. Vivienne left him anyways, which I very much applaud her for. She still taught students, this time in fashion, this was also where she met the partner. Andreas, which she still is with today.
Now Andreas was a little bit cheeky and gave her the idea that there was still room for improvement in her work. She was intrigued by him and let him work on her collection. She started working really hard and was longing to be a recognized designer. However, the fashion press did not like her very much. They didn’t understand her work, and it took her many years to become a designer of the year. A prize which she actually won multiple times by now.
One of the things that I find most important about her and Andreas’s work is the huge focus on creating a sustainable brand. Vivienne is very much worried about climate change and does a lot to raise awareness for it. I think it’s beautiful to see a woman with so much history is still making an effort to better her brand.
I will include the link to the documentary about Vivienne, feel free to check it out. It does have Dutch subtitles, but everything is spoken in English. In the documentary I noticed that Vivienne doesn’t appear to be doing very well mentally. She did say that she hated the way the documentary portrayed her, but I think it is a quite honest image that was created. Fashion industry is rough and there is a lot of pressure on everybody in it. You wake up with work and fall asleep still thinking about it. I know the feeling. But I wouldn’t want to change any of that, it’s what I live for.
So, hope you enjoyed my blog! Feel free to leave a comment if you liked it and also if you didn’t. Had you ever heard of Vivienne before?
Love, Brigitte
@missy
@rambo
