Vivienne Westwood carved a lane no one else could touch. Her brand wasn’t fashion first—it was ideology in textile form. She started in the '70s with Malcolm McLaren, dressing the Sex Pistols out of their shop SEX, where torn tees, latex, and safety pins weren’t styling—they were provocation. That punk energy didn’t fade—it morphed.
In the '80s, she flipped the script with the “Pirate” collection: historical silhouettes, tricorn hats, swashbuckler tailoring—clothes that looked like time-traveling rebels. Then she went deep into British heritage, dragging royalty and aristocracy into chaos. She’d twist 18th-century court dress, add bondage, slap plaid on it and send it down the runway with platform heels that could snap ankles. She was styling revolutionaries in Queen’s clothing.
The 90s and early 2000s was her sweet spot. That’s when she built the visual code people still chase: orb logos, tartan mini kilts, asymmetric tops with exposed seams, armor corsets, and those towering platforms Naomi Campbell famously fell in. But it wasn’t just about iconography—Viv grounded all of it in anti-consumerism, climate activism, and anti-authoritarian politics. Her clothes were loud, clever, and confrontational—made to look good and piss someone off.
She didn’t make trends. She made statements. Her brand is what happens when someone uses history, sex, and rebellion like scalpels—and cuts fashion open.