1.INTRO 2.CO 3.MARY QUAN WESTWOOD 5.F
OCO CHANEL NT 4.VIVIENNE FASHION TODAY
T N I
O R T
In light of the Me Too movement, the demand for equal pay and the growing number of female politicians, a woman’s role in politics has become increasingly significant. And while grassroots activism and bold statements have always been essential to feminism, fashion also plays a part in shattering gender boundaries. The object that best defines cultures throughout history is fashion. Clothes have been created and used for centuries and have been influenced by the changes in society. It can reveal many things about the identity of people. Each change in style is in relation to historical context. Many Artists and designers started to facilitate the changes brought on to the mass by the War and machine age. People began to develop a different way of thinking. A new wave of inventors and innovators had arrived and long were the days when art and design were confined to a particular box with a particular set of rules. People began to think away from tradition and reject the standardized way. The new generation of artists started to accommodate this sudden change in culture. This meant for modernity. It is amazing to see how the different events in history have influenced and changed the way people have dressed throughout time. Some of the most popular fashions are classic, they can stand the test of time and hardly ever “go out of style”, only experiencing minor changes to keep up with the trends. Other clothing items could be considered “fads”, styles that are only popular for a short season and then never worn again. Often certain fashion trends are dependent on the tastes of particular groups of people or cliques and are usually associated with social status or cultural preferences like the type of music person likes. Fashion can also be influenced by world events such as
war or the economy. For example, during World War II, people were only allowed a certain amount of fabric so they were forced to create simple outfits that were practical enough for wartime duties. From the 1920s to the 1990s, popular fashions reflected the mood of each decade and showcased changes in society as the styles of clothing and accessories evolved with the times. Fashion has always responded to what is going on in the world, whether that be art, music, design, technology, politics or historical moments. Designers are inspired by these subjects and so they comment through their work. Women take leading creative and business-focused roles, often combined. It is important for younger generations to see female role models and their progression in order to liken themselves to what they see and what they could achieve. Fashion is often used as a platform for debate in society for both social and political campaigns. It’s a great way to communicate to women from all walks of life. Changing economic, political and social pressures throughout history have impacted the way human beings live their daily lives. One of the many basic areas affected by these historical changes is the area of the wardrobe. The way a person dresses has traditionally shown his or her social status, occupation, and even political views. Political and social pressure particularly influence the clothing styles favored by women. In what way, however, does the average wardrobe reflect the cultural considerations of the time, and what can the prevailing fashions of bygone eras reveal about the pressures of those days? Specifically, what do the frequent and drastic style shifts throughout the late 1800’s reveal about the nature of society during World War I. It seems that during 20th-century fashion started progressing faster than in the past times. In a period from 1900 to 1999 – which is just 100 years, fashion has gone through great transformations. The 1900s were known as a period of ‘’Belle Époque’’. Women started living more independent lifestyles, so the fashion in demand was rather practical. However, they still stuck to elaborate, upholstered style of the 19th century. The 1900s were the time when the first tailored suit for women was created. It was based on male suit, and soon it became favorite garment among women. World War I brought big changes to fashion, but they were rather a necessity than a caprice. As more women were forced to work the demand for more comfortable clothes was higher. Dark and monochrome colors became the norm due to the
4
stressful times in wich many died. Skirts became significantly shorter by the time of 1915s — first, they were raised above ankles and then even higher. The period between two world wars is considered the golden age of French fashion. It was the period of great change and reformation of women’s fashion. And yet, throughout history, women have continually fallen subject to various rules and regulations that dictate what we ‘can’ and ‘can’t’ put on our bodies. In fact, men telling women what to wear has been going on for thousands and thousands of years. Since the heyday of the hand-span waists in the mid-19th century, the corset has represented a visual shorthand for “woman.” Indeed, it cannot be divorced from the idealization of women’s bodies, and the politics surrounding them. There is no question of the sexuality of the corset, emphasizing the breasts and hips, and hence underscoring the stereotypically fecund female physique. For many, the reduction of the waist persistently reflects a reductive view of femininity, limited to a va-va-voom outline. Women’s role in society was not active or functional but rather very ‘sitting pretty’ and the corsets reflect this trend. Corsets were often made of whale bones and steel caging for the ultimate squeeze effect. Difficulty to launder, women wore thin underdresses made of material like cotton underneath their corset to avoid rusting the steel. Although they weren’t running marathons in these, apparently the sweat factor was still quite high.
Fast forward to the 1950s fashion was a reaction to the end of World War II. Flirty, feminine fashion that used excessive amounts of flowy fabric came into style. These styles showed off women’s shapes in a way that a military uniform never did, & they sought to distance women from men again. Now that the crisis was over, women were expected to leave the workforce & be content being wives & mothers. Women rose to the occasion just a decade earlier when their country needed them the most, & now there were attempts to put women back “where they belonged.� At home, women set about the day cooking, cleaning and tending the children. Her housewife dress was a full-skirted swing dress in simple cotton solids, small prints, checks, plaid, and thin stripes. The shirtwaist dress was the most popular design that buttoned up the full length of the front or just the bodice. They usually have short to 3/4 length sleeves, large pockets, a collar, and thin matching fabric belt. A light petticoat was worn underneath to provide fullness and an apron on top to keep her dress clean. Her shoes were usually flats but on TV a housewife wore heels.
At a glance they convey more to the critical feminine eye than could reams on reams of minute description. But what is not so apparent are the conditions that are responsible for the popularity of the modern, tightly clinging gowns; for while fashion on its practical side still adheres to forms acceptable to the up-to-date woman, yet it is constant and persistent in its search for novelty and variety. Where a hundred years ago, and even more pronouncedly fifty years ago, the wide, flaring, elaborately colored skirts were so dearly beloved of the feminine heart, today the smooth and simple forms, the clinging, elastic, graceful ideas are applied in skirt, blouse, bolero and other waist forms. Simplicity of outline is the rule. Women fashion has evolved so much. Freedom of females today is that we can be all these women from the past that made our the path we can freely walk on and have all the freedom of the world to be who we are and express it through fashion. The moral of the story being that we have a long history of pushing the boundaries in fashion as a means of pushing harder-to-move societal boundaries, including gender rules and norms around decorum and social conduct. Whether we’re aware of it or not, fashion is always reflecting our values right back at us. The tendency to see it as superficial does this fact such a grave injustice. Fashion is a mirror for what a society thinks and feels, for what it values and respects. Today, fashion choices are limitless. Each individual has a personal choice and preference and the freedom of that decision is empowering for men and women. What you wear is a message to the world about your own taste, style and identity. It is important to feel comfortable and happy in what you are wearing to instil confidence. Designers cannot create empowerment through design alone; it is how they can make a woman feel in a garment, the emotional connection to dressing is what empowers us.
12
O C
A H C
O C O
L E N A
Being a woman in the early 1900s wasn’t always the easiest. Coco Chanel chose to change this, and it started with her abolition of the corset. She wanted to inspire women to be women, and to allow them to live comfortably and freely. Through the use of her fashion and accessories, she inspired and uplifted women. This spirit of the free woman still lives today in all of Chanel’s vintage and current lines. We will constantly be inspired by Coco Chanel.
Born on August 19, 1883, in Saumur, France, her early years were anything but glamorous. After her mother’s death, Chanel was put in an orphanage by her father, who worked as a peddler. She was raised by nuns who taught her how to sew, a skill that would lead to her life’s work. At the age of 18, Chanel left the abbey orphanage for Notre Dame Finishing School in Moulins as a charity student, according to Alston and Dixon. She developed a relationship with her father’s family, including a close one with her aunt Adrienne, who was roughly her age. Together, Chanel and her aunt began working as seamstress and tailor assistants, meeting men, visiting concert halls and performing cabaret. Apparently Gabrielle got her nickname Coco from one or two of the songs she regularly performed: “Qui qu’a vu Coco?” and “Ko Ko Rik Ko”, an allusion to the French word “cocotte,” meaning “kept woman.” This upbringing can clearly been seen as an inspiration for the independent and classic Gabrielle Chanel. Her next move, and the start of the Chanel House, was designing hats. Once these designs became popular, Coco started designing clothing. These pieces immediately became the top name in fashion. In her early twenties, she came to a conclusion that the main thing in life was money. She became involved with Etienne Balsan in 1905. Coco Chanel hung around his neck. In her eyes, he was the real man, who had money and was able to spend it easily. Having settled in his castle, she took full advantage of her new life. She slept until noon, drinking coffee with milk and reading cheap novels. Balsan helped her start a millinery business in Paris. Later, Coco Chanel met with a friend of Balsan Captain, Arthur Edward, an English polo player with a straight black hair and a dull complexion who would later replace Balsan as her boyfriend. In 1910, Chanel became licensed hat maker and
16 started selling hats in her boutique named Chanel Modes on 21 Rue Cambon. The street became famous throughout the world and had been linked to her name for a half a century. In 1913, Coco opened her boutique in Deauville that quickly attracted regular clients. As her fashion-conscious customers fled Paris at the beginning of the war, Chanel’s boutiques in Deauville and Biarritz flourished. Chanel’s uncluttered styles, with their boxy lines and shortened skirts, freeing them for the practical activities made necessary by the war. Elements of these early designs became hallmarks of the Chanel look. Chanel took great pride as a woman in designing for other women, and by 1919, at the age of thirty-two, she enjoyed huge success, with clients around the world. Soon after, she relocated her couture house in Paris to 31 rue Cambon, which remains the center of operations for the House of Chanel today. As one of the only female designers of her time, Coco Chanel’s iconic looks were influenced by what she herself wanted to wear. Rather than following in the footsteps of her male predecessors, who had a tendency to cater to their own fantasies of femininity, the French provocateur forged her own path. After the First World War, the rich avoided wearing precious jewelry for fear of looking unpatriotic. So they optioned for costume jewelry and proclaimed their independence by wearing fakes as opposed to being kept by a man. Not only motivated by practical concerns, Chanel was determined to overhaul what fashion meant for women. Casting off the rich colours that were the pinnacle of style before the war, she unleashed black from its funereal status and placed it at the centre of her design aesthetic. Throughout the ‘20s, Chanel’s social, sexual and professional progress continued, and her eminence grew to the status of legend. Now she wanted to create a scent that could describe the new, modern woman she epitomised. By 1921, Chanel introduced her brand’s first perfume, the iconic Chanel No. 5. Created by French parfumier Ernest Beaux. By the early ‘30s she’d been courted by Hollywood, gone and come back. She had almost married one of the richest men in Europe, the Duke of Westminster; when she didn’t, her explanation was, “There have been several Duchesses of Westminster. There is only one Chanel.” She is the only fashion designer listed on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
18 A staple in any women’s wardrobe is the Little Black Dress which first appeared as an illustration in American Vogue in 1926. Vogue editors christened the ‘Ford’ dress after the era’s classic black car, asserting that the chic, longsleeved design in unlined crèpe de chine would “become sort of a uniform for all women of taste.” And weren’t they right. The innovative dress was a radical update for the modern women, revolutionary for both its striking silhouette and dark tone; since the Victorian times black had been associated with mourning. Before Chanel, the fashionable colours of reds, green and electric blues that her peers dressed in made the designer “feel ill.” For Coco, black was the epitome of simple elegance and always one to subvert tradition, she was the key proponent in making black a colour that could be worn everyday. Its almost universal popularity makes it a fashion basic. Throughout subsequent seasons, this is a classic piece of twentiethcentury womenswear.
The little black flapper dress, which was straight and loose, was often decorated with tassels and has now become an icon in its own right. For these women, the LBD marked a significant moment of liberation: they were free from the restrictive, traditional clothing of the century before.
dropping waistlines to hips and shorting the hems of skirts and dresses. Josephine Baker was the epitome of flapper girl style. An American entertainer who became famous in France for her acting, singing, dancing and costumes.
It can be said that this wardrobe staple was inspired by flapper culture, which took over before the 1920s. Their appearance was a response to the changing environment around them. Their Fashion was influenced by the war, jazz music and so much more. Many looked down upon them, not knowing their true meaning and everything that they stood for. Some people even consider Flappers as the start of feminism. They are an important part of history that are often left out. Flappers loved jazz music and it turned them into “new women”. They embodied the modern spirit that this era created and propelled it further. The early jazz music was wild and exciting dance music, which was reflected in the fashion. Music spoke to the flappers’ free spirit and desire to change societal norms. Through fashion, flappers expressed their emotions. Flappers adopted the “garconne” or little boy look. This style deemphasized the mature female form by flattening the chest,
Her drop-waist dress allowed her to dance without constriction. The flattened chest and lower waistline emphasized the masculine look. The boxy silhouette dismissed the curves in her figure which was the complete opposite of the corset which was to accentuate the chest and waist. With restrictive girdles and long, bulky dresses becoming as untrendy as the 1980s Dynasty
dresses of today, many ladies took on a “less is more” ideal when it came to style. But some women pushed the envelope a little further than intended, producing some sinfully wonderful and downright wicked outfits. One of them was Baker herself. She was best known for her risqué approach to fashion when performing almost nude. While she had many memorable acts and starring movie roles, one of her most famous and scandalous costumes was the banana dress. In a performance called “La Folie du Jour” Baker danced wearing little more than a skirt made of 16 bananas. In a decade during which women were by and large still wrapping their minds around ditching corsets, stepping out in a couple of bananas and bare breasts was a total shocker.
20
She became an overnight sensation: Thousands of dolls in banana skirts were sold all over Europe; beauty editors advised women to rub walnut oil on their faces to darken their skin like Baker’s; postcards, featuring Baker with a glossy, slicked-down hairstyle in her famous banana skirt with jewelry strategically placed over naked breasts, were widely distributed. But beyond her beauty and charisma, radically redefined notions of race and gender through style and performance in a way that continues to echo throughout fashion and music today. The skirt hemlines of flappers fashion began to rise in 1913 when skirts stopped just above the ankles. By 1918, hemlines had risen to just below calf length and for the next several years showed variations of a few inches one way or another. However, it was Baker who went all out. Baker was wearing a miniskirt nearly 40 years before the word “miniskirt” had been coined. As with many of the trends Baker launched into popularity, she was far ahead of her time.
Similiar to the LBD, not many fashion items have withstood the test of time quite like a Chanel suit. The iconic two-piece set, would not only live on to become a symbol of fashion, but a representation of the liberated woman. Worn by international fashion figures including Jackie Kennedy, Princess Diana, Brigitte Bardot, and Barbara Walters, the Chanel suit has become a representation of sophistication and an permanent staple for the storied brand.
Known for mixing traditional ideas of masculinity and femininity, Chanel took inspiration from the sportswear and menswear that her then-boyfriend, the Duke of Westminster, would wear. Chanel herself would even reportedly wear her lovers’ clothes, because she believed menswear to be more comfortable than pre-war women’s fashion of the time. Chanel wanted women to exude elegance while allowing them to move freely. Inspired by sportswear, the iconic course tweed fabric used in the detailed crafting of Chanel suits was initially not considered a glamorous textile. Tweed was primarily manufactured in Scottish twill mills, where Chanel discovered the true diversity of the fabric. Chanel’s passion for feminizing tweed by implementing new colors, materials, and textures to the then-underutilized fabric took the fashion world by storm, inspiring other French couturiers to employ her methods. The slim skirt and collarless jacket dubbed “Chanel’s uniform” became widely known with the help of press coverage. Chanel’s classic suit catered to the principles of First Wave Feminists during the early 20th century
24
A M
A U Q
Y R A
T N A
Inventive, opinionated and commercially minded, Mary Quant was the most iconic fashion designer of the 1960s. A design and retail pioneer, she popularised super-high hemlines and other irreverent looks that were critical to the development of the ‘Swinging Sixties’ scene. Looking back at her influence, it’s clear Quant’s impact was far greater than just bringing miniskirts and hot pants into the mainstream — her impact on the fashion industry and society as a whole really can’t be understated.
Mary Quant was born and brought up in Blackheath, London, the daughter of two Welsh schoolteachers. Following her parents’ refusal to let her attend a fashion course, Quant studied illustration at Goldsmiths, where she met her future husband, the aristocrat Alexander Plunket Greene. She graduated in 1953 with a diploma in art education, and began an apprenticeship at a high-end milliner, Erik of Brook Street. In 1955, Plunket Greene purchased Markham House on the King’s Road in Chelsea, London, an area frequented by the ‘Chelsea Set’ a group of young artists, film directors and socialites interested in exploring new ways of living – and dressing. Quant, Plunket Greene and a friend, lawyer-turnedphotographer Archie McNair, opened a restaurant (Alexander’s) in the basement of the new building, and a boutique called Bazaar on the ground floor. The different strengths of each partner contributed to their long term success; while working together on all aspects – Quant concentrated on design, Plunket Greene had the entrepreneurial and marketing skills, and McNair brought legal and business sense to the brand. Quant initially stocked the shop with outfits she could source on the wholesale market, exploiting the opportunity to offer a new take on women’s style. But she soon became frustrated with the clothes available. Encouraged by the success of what Quant described as a pair of ‘mad’ lounge pyjamas that she had designed for Bazaar’s opening (the design featured in Harper’s Bazaar magazine and was later purchased by an American manufacturer), she decided to start stocking the boutique with her own designs. Quant was a self-taught designer, attending evening classes on cutting and adjusting mass-market printed patterns to achieve the looks she was after. Once technically proficient, she initiated a hand-to-mouth production cycle: the day’s sales at Bazaar paid for the cloth that was then made
up overnight into new stock for the following day. Although exhausting, this cottage-industry approach meant that the rails at Bazaar were continually refreshed with short runs of new designs, satisfying the customers’ hunger for fresh, unique looks at competitive prices. From the late 1950s to the early 1960s, Bazaar was one of very few shops in London that offered an alternative to the ‘mature’ styles produced by other high-fashion designers. It also offered a radically different shopping experience than the couturiers, department stores and chain stores that made up the mainstream fashion market. At Bazaar, loud music, free drinks, witty window displays and extended opening hours created a ‘scene’ that often kept going late into the evening. Young women travelled to Bazaar to enjoy shopping for ‘something different’ in a much less formal environment. Quant’s clothes struck a particular chord with young women who, like the designer, were children of austerity who wanted to enjoy life a bit more than the generation before them. Her style was playful and fun – she riffed on the tweed suits her customer’s mother wanted her to wear by raising hemlines and making everything a whole lot more youthful. Unlike many of the more traditional fashion houses, Quant wasn’t catering for the old elite instead, she encapsulated exactly what it was like to be a young woman in the 1960s. As a female professional excelling in a male-dominated industry to this day, many of the major fashion designers are men she was an inspiration for a new generation of working women. Quant was a breath of fresh air in the fashion industry. This was a time when Paris was seen as the fashion capital of the world, with an emphasis on haute couture and uber-expensive garments. These clothes were beautiful but wholly unattainable for most women. Not only did Quant manage to shift more of the world’s focus on London, but she also worked hard to bring fashion to a wider group of people.
Although Quant is most famously associated with the mini skirt, she is also credited with popularising hot pants in the late ‘60s. According to Quant, her provocative hot pants “sold faster than they could make them.� The bloomer-style shorts fought against the male gaze, allowing women to reclaim fashion as an art form of self-representation.
In an effort to give her clients what they asked for, Quant designed a style of shorts synonymous with the times that had a maximum inseam of about two inches. Better known as hotpants, the name for the style was coined by a fashion trade publication in 1970 when used as a generic term to refer to different styles and price points of the popular new trend. By promoting these and other fun fashions she encouraged young people to dress to please themselves and to treat fashion as a game.
Quant is often credited with inventing the decade’s most iconic look: the mini-skirt. There is no conclusive evidence to say who first took hemlines a daringly long way north of the knee (French couturier André Courrèges is another possibility). Regardless, extremely short skirts and shift dresses became Quant’s trademark, and were popularised by the era’s most high-profile model, Twiggy, whose willowy figure helped turn super-short hemlines into an international trend. Dame Lesley Lawson was a British cultural icon and a prominent teenage model during the swinging sixties in London. Twiggy was initially known for her thin build (thus her nickname) and the androgynous appearance considered to result from her big eyes, long eyelashes, long legs and short hair. Her androgynous look became famous and shocked the public eye in a positive way. She was different from the other girls and was recognized by everyone. Her working-class roots and cockney accent contrasted refreshingly with the image projected by other girls who had dominated the modelling profession Twiggy, was more than just a magazine maven: She was a trendsetter, a daring dresser, and an icon in her own right. “Whether you’re thin, fat,
small, dark, blond, redhead, you wanna be something else,” said the world’s first boldface supermodel. “I wanted a fairy godmother to make me look like Marilyn Monroe. I had no boobs, no hips, and I wanted it desperately.” What she wanted was all around her: fuller-figure models with names nobody remembers, many of them middle-class or uppercrust older girls biding their time before landing husbands. Absent any of that, what Twiggy had was extreme youth, a thirst for fashion and triple-layered false eyelashes that fed her right into the decade’s social revolution alongside the Beatles and pop art.
Twiggy became virtually synonymous with Mary Quant’s youthful brand designs during the Sixties, in particular this pink a-line dress from 1966.
masculine shirts with collars and a neck tie. However, it was the wearing of the mini-skirt that really caught the world’s attention. Twiggy’s knock-knees and spindly legs emphasised Mary’s hemlines – which were well above the knee. Mary’s continued celebration of youth culture was mirrored in Twiggy’s exaggerated childlike image; in her brief career as a model from 1966 to 1970 (before she turned to acting and singing), she came to define the Quant look
Twiggy worked closely with Mary Quant and her fashion collaborations, seen in dresses and skirts that hit at around six or seven inches above the knees. Incomparably scandalous for the time, the mini quickly made its way onto magazine covers and in nearly every advertising campaign of the latter part of the decade. Her slim frame was perfect for the styles that the sixties brought forward, such as cute A-Line dresses that tended to hide any sign of curves or shape, and
It was working closely with Twiggy modelling the skirt that really made women all over want to take the mini skirts for a test-drive. Twiggy was at the forefront of women’s liberation in the sixties, often not wearing a bra or garters, and showing off those long legs in a perilously short skirt. Her look was perfect for emerging unisex trends and ever-rising hemlines Twiggy’s style was daring for its time, and stood out with a variety of unique looks, from mini skirts to menswear-inspired fashions. Some of these styles are mainstays in the fashion world today. “The Chelsea Look” was made popular by Mary Quant, the designer, but it was modeled by Twiggy, the icon.
Modern fashion owes a great deal to the trailblazing designer Mary Quant. From skinny-rib sweaters, to coloured tights and ‘onesies’, she was both original and easily emulated, the perfect fashion pioneer. Most people probably have something quite Quant in their wardrobe right now, perhaps a shift dress, a Peter Pan-collared blouse or a miniskirt. She was the first designer to use PVC rainwear and even created the first waterproof mascara.
E V I V
W T S E W
E N EN
D O O W
Vivienne Westwood – The ace designer from Britain, is known for her punk designs. Punk was as much a youthful reaction against older generations, considered oppressive and outdated, as a product of the newly recognized and influential youth culture. Creative and entrepreneurial people, such as Westwood, often contribute to an aesthetic that brings a subcultural style to the forefront of fashion.
Vivienne Westwood was born in a village in Derbyshire in 1941, the daughter of a factory worker and cotton weaver. In 1958, her family moved to Harrow, Middlesex, and Westwood took a jewellery and silversmith course at the University of Westminster, then known as the Harrow Art School, but left after one term, saying: “I didn’t know how a working-class girl like me could possibly make a living in the art world”. She moved to London with her family as a teenager where she trained as a primary school teacher. Having split up with her first husband, it was meeting and later working with art student Malcolm McLaren (born in London in 1946) that gave Westwood a focus for her restless idealism, as well as the opportunity to harness a natural flair for dressmaking. Rejecting the hippie ethos that was fashionable towards the end of the 1960s, Westwood and McLaren created clothes that referenced youth culture’s recent past, selling rock’n’roll fashion in a shop unit at 430 King’s Road in Chelsea. In the early seventies, they orchestrated a stylistic revolution—a backlash against the flared denim and wide lapels that dominated the sixties. Their store, through its many iterations, cemented an unprecedented relationship between music, fashion and counter-culture, shaping generations of fashion designers who followed. Their small shop at 430 Kings Road became the cornerstone of the most monumental shift in youth culture since the advent of Rock ‘N Roll itself. And while Westwood and McLaren certainly did not invent punk, no one commoditized and marketed the movement as successfully. Situation, location and time period are all crucial to fully grasping the impact of 430 Kings Road. The store began in the back of Paradise Garage, a small outpost in London’s Chelsea district. In 1970, Chelsea was experiencing surging growth, quickly transforming into an artist enclave. Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, and all four Beatles counted themselves as locals. Boutiques sprouted up everywhere. They sold bohemian ephemera,
featuring everything from silk caftans to imported rugs. Uninterested in such hippie fantasies, McLaren, an art school dropout, and Westwood, a schoolteacher, began to hock symbols of ‘50s kitsch out of Garage. The two were more intrigued by early fifties Rock ‘N Roll, preferring Elvis and Chuck Barry to the glam Rock-Pop taking over the airwaves at the time. Soon enough, Paradise Garage shut down, and by 1971 the couple took over the space. Expanding on their brand of romanticizing the 1950s, they transformed the space into Let It Rock. With the expansion, Westwood, who was still perfecting her sewing, began to sell reinterpreted renditions of Teddy Boy fashion. The style, which harkened back to post-WWII England, mainly composed of flamboyantly colored zoot suits, drainpipe pants and thick sole creepers. By 1972 the designer’s interests had turned to biker clothing, zips and leather. The shop was re-branded with a skull and crossbones and renamed Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die. Westwood and McLaren began to design t-shirts with provocative messages leading to their prosecution under the obscenity laws; their reaction was to re-brand the shop once again and produce even more hard core images. By 1974 the shop had been renamed Sex, a shop ‘unlike anything else going on in England at the time’ with the slogan ‘rubberwear for the office’. In 1976 the Sex Pistol’s God Save the Queen, managed by McLaren, went to number one and was refused air time by the BBC. The shop reopened as Seditionaires transforming the straps and zips of obscure sexual fetishism into fashion and inspiring a D.I.Y. aesthetic. The media called it ‘Punk Rock’. In 1977 SEX was renamed Seditionaries, but punk power began to wane. The collapse of the Sex Pistols and the absorption of Punk into the mainstream left Westwood disenchanted. In 1980 Seditionaries became Worlds End and when McLaren wanted to vacate it, while Westwood held onto it. More crucially, for the first time she began designing her own clothes with what became known as the Pirates collection. This collection, her first to be presented on a catwalk, in 1981, was to prove a turning point, not only because it announced her interest in historicism, but also because within two years she would form her own company without McLaren. By 1984, the couple separated, with McLaren focusing on music management and Westwood switching lanes from street to high-fashion.
Westwood transferred the controversial image of punk into the world of fashion. Her main focus was on breaking taboos and capturing the atmosphere of riot and danger. The punk lady used Nazi symbols as well as sexual references in her designs and played with gender stereotypes. Vivienne also liked to use traditional British elements: Union Jack, Scottish tartans, and images of monarchs. A great example of her signature style might be the iconic ‘God Save The Queen’ t-shirt created in collaboration with McLaren, and Reid in 1977 (also the year of the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II). They altered an image of the Queen creating another version of the famous Cecil Beaton photograph. They shut the Queen’s mouth with a safety pin (an iconic accessory for Punks) and covered her eyes with swastikas. Both the song and the t-shirt were deeply shocking at the time and considered borderline treasonous.
ETC.