Designer Profile: Vivienne Westwood
Vivienne Westwood is an English fashion designer and one of the architects of modern punk fashion bringing new wave of fashion into the mainstream. Honored with the Outstanding Achievement in Fashion Design award.
Her extremely unique designs were first appeared in the clothing shop, Let It Rock with Malcolm McLaren as her partner. Westwood explored different outrageous designs and clothed to the London fashionistas around the punk scene like the Sex Pistols band that defined the era. The punk style began to gain fame when the Sex Pistols wore clothes from Westwood and McLaren’s shop during their first gig.
Westwood’s bold fashion sense remained as she broadened the scope of her efforts. She used culturally traditional old-fashioned fabrics, such as tartan, tweed and lace, to express cutting-edge punk styles that are uniquely different to others. She began designing shoes with McLaren in the mid 1970s in London’s growing punk scene. Westwood continued to design footwear for her collections when she established her own label during 1980’s.
Her shoes can be easily spotted from the others so far. An eccentric reinterpretations of classic silhouettes consisting of sexy towering heels and curving platforms in bold shapes with traditional fabrics used in surprising ways, Westwood’s shoes are often with multiple bows, buckles, ties, laces and other decorative touches, often in unexpected places or combinations. She regularly uses unusual colors and fabrics or exaggerated shapes to liven up a shoe’s design.
