She wasn’t wearing couture, in fact she wasn't wearing much at all except for a shower cap, the first time I became really interested in Vivienne Westwood. It wasn’t even her own campaign but a video for animal rights group PETA, where showering, she spoke about how vegetarianism saves water. I was twenty-seven and working in fashion by day, my nights spent on a sustainability crusade, deep diving into the impact of industrial fishing and carbon emissions (sexy, I know!). Thus, how I landed on Vivienne in a bathtub. Part PR, part activist and wholly unsure how to marry both, it wasn’t until I saw a press officer job advertised at Westwood HQ where I felt like I’d found my calling. I could talk about clothes and help save the planet.
Vivienne was more aware than anyone of the contradictions between making clothes and reducing waste. People (for the most part) need clothes and people want her clothes, so she made collections with greener fabrics like hemp, vegetable dyes and emblazoned them with environmental messages. For many of us, their conscious credentials only heightened their desirability. Her catwalk shows were stages for protest, the clothes beautiful but never overshadowing the point that she’d be making. My first season she was raising awareness about the impact of climate change on a sinking Venice. I suspect many of her fans, like me, didn't know much about the issue. Then because of Vivienne, we did. I still count meeting Captain Paul Watson from marine action group, Sea Shepherd, at that show as my coolest ‘celebrity’ moment. I remember going back to my hotel room and calling my husband to say, ‘you’ll never guess who was at the show!’ (...and Zendaya).
I have one of the ‘Repopulate Venice’ jumpers from that collection, and I can count the rest of the Vivienne Westwood clothes I own on one hand. In the press office, we lived and breathed her mantra to ‘buy less’ and so instead of purchasing pieces, we borrowed clothes from the collection rails. At the end of the season I would pack everything up, well worn by staff, on photoshoots and by celebrities. They’d sometimes be a little overworn, but then I’m sure Vivienne would have preferred it that way.
As a budding environmental activist, the big Vivienne actions were exciting, like the day she drove a tank to David Cameron’s home to protest against fracking. I was able to attend some of her Climate Revoultion meetings, an eco-war room where protests were plotted and a place I always left feeling like the world was moving in a better direction. Though it wasn’t always the epic things that were most inspiring. To me, it Vivienne’s small rituals, the way she bicycled between offices or turned off the lights everytime she came into ours, because it was better to work in the dim than waste electricity. Where others talk about sustainability, Vivienne lived it.
Fittingly, in the end I left Vivienne Westwood for a job with PETA. A year after that my husband died, one of my favourite photographs is of him standing at a protest with a giant Vivienne Westwood ‘Climate Revolution’ sign. I’ve learnt in grief, that how we have live continues to echo across all those we leave behind. We’d do well to hear these words from Vivienne then, ‘make full use of your character and full use of your life on earth’. And turn off the lights.