Key facts about Vivienne Westwood
Dame Vivienne Westwood was a British fashion designer.
She was born in 1941 in Glossop, Derbyshire and died in 2022.
A fashion designer is someone who creates designs for clothes, shoes or accessories such as bags or belts.
Vivienne Westwood used her fashion designs to express her thoughts and feelings about about topics she cared about, like The shift in the Earth’s usual weather conditions over many years..
Video: Who was Vivienne Westwood?
Find out about the life and work of Vivienne Westwood
Narrator: Vivienne Westwood was born in Glossop, Derbyshire in 1941.
Vivienne learnt how to design and make her own clothes and got excited by doing things differently.
She worked as a primary school teacher but also started selling handmade jewellery on a market stall.
Later, she teamed up with Malcolm McLaren who was known for managing bands at the time.
Together they started designing and selling clothing in their shop.
Vivienne was a major influence on 1970s fashion through her connection with punk music and the fashion scene.
She started deconstructing or taking apart fashion, before turning it into something new.
She liked to include slogans and bold images, ripped t-shirts and tartan patterns in her work.
Vivienne Westwood was an icon across fashion, pop culture, charities and environmental issues.
She has influenced generations by pushing boundaries and standing up for what she thought was right.
What is punk?
Vivienne Westwood and her designs were part of a movement known as punk that became popular in the 1970s.
Punks are often seen in ripped clothes, denim, leather, metal spikes or studs and army style boots. They sometimes use safety pins as decorations on their clothes.
Throughout her career Vivienne Westwood mixed the punk style with more traditional styles and materials such as A fabric featuring a checked pattern of different colours, traditionally associated with Scotland. and A type of rough, wool material..
Watch: Vivienne Westwood and fashion design
Laura: Isn't it interesting that every single piece of clothing we wear was designed by someone and probably started out as a drawing or a sketch?
Yes, even the shape and colour of your socks have been carefully designed by an expert, a fashion designer!
Dame Vivienne Westwood was one of Britain's most successful fashion designers.
She designed clothes, bags, shoes, and jewellery with a unique style that often surprised people.
Her style was known as punk!
She sometimes used her designs to make statements about topics that she felt passionately about.
All clothes begin as an idea or a sketch.
A fashion designer will research or look around for inspiration.
Then they select fabrics and stick little samples of them on their design. This is sometimes called a mood board.
The next step for the designer is to have the clothes made!
Why not grab your sketchbook and get designing a fabulous outfit? Where will you get your inspiration from?
Vivienne Westwood's designs
Image caption, Vivienne Westwood's 2017 London Fashion Week show. Fashion weeks are special times of the year for fashion designers, when they showcase their newest designs for the coming season. The designers will spend lots of time creating their designs, having the clothes made and choosing the right models. At the fashion show, sometimes the designer comes out onto the runway (the place where models walk to showcase fashion at shows) to celebrate.
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Vivienne Westwood's factfile
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Did you know?
- Vivienne Westwood always encouraged people to buy less Clothes that are produced quickly, often using lower quality materials that are typically replaced after a short time..
- She said we should keep wearing things that we love instead of replacing clothes when we get bored of them.
- Clothing production can use lots of energy and resources. It sometimes uses Unhealthy or dangerous. fabric dyes and other chemicals that can pollute water.
- Westwood used fabrics that were sustainable, friendly to the environment and would last a long time.
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