Tributes have been paid to Dame Vivienne Westwood from across the worlds of fashion and design, and by others including figures from the environmental and political causes she supported.
The pioneering British fashion designer, who played a key role in the punk movement, died “peacefully, surrounded by her family” in Clapham, south London, on Thursday, her representatives said. She was 81.
Her husband and creative partner, Andreas Kronthaler, said: “I will continue with Vivienne in my heart. We have been working until the end and she has given me plenty of things to get on with. Thank you darling.”
A statement issued by Westwood’s representatives said she had continued to do the things she loved up until the last moment, including designing, working on her art and writing a book.
It added that the Vivienne Foundation, a not-for-profit company founded by Westwood, her sons and granddaughter in late 2022, would launch next year to “honour, protect and continue the legacy of Vivienne’s life, design and activism”.
Among those paying tribute was the Pretenders frontwoman, Chrissie Hynde, who worked at Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s boutique in punk’s early days. She said on Twitter: “Vivienne is gone and the world is already a less interesting place.”
Sir Paul McCartney said on Twitter: “Goodbye Vivienne Westwood. A ballsy lady who rocked the fashion world and stood defiantly for what was right. Love Paul x”.
Naomi Campbell, who famously toppled over while walking the runway in one of Westwood’s shows in platform heels, said Westwood was “the original queen of fashion”.
She wrote: “Your strength was admirable in a business where it is dominated by men. You were a force of nature, that would always encourage me to push forward not give up on things I was passionate about doing outside of work.
“Your honesty was to be valued whether we liked to hear it or not, you spoke your truth, real and authentic … Your storytelling designs that were busting with regal and groundbreaking cuts that everyone has copied till this very day! And your beautiful love story with Andreas, one we read about in fairytales, that I witnessed for decades. We can only dream of such love.”
Addressing Westwood in an Instagram post, the American fashion designer Marc Jacobs said he was “heartbroken”, adding: “You did it first. Always. Incredible style with brilliant and meaningful substance … Rest in peace dear Vivienne, although, somehow peace seems like the wrong word.”
Boy George, the British singer and songwriter, said on Twitter that Westwood had taken the lead “through punk and beyond”.
“Laughed at by the fashion industry but without question she is the undisputed queen of British fashion. I love you! Oh bondage up yours!” he added.
Bella Hadid, one of today’s most high-profile models, described the designer as the most “epic human being that has walked this earth … my inspiration and idol in all things”.
There was also recognition of Westwood’s long-running involvement in environmental activism. In the mid-2000s she turned her political focus towards the climate crisis.
Greenpeace, which she had worked with, described her as a “true radical” as well as “a force of nature and a titan of the fashion world”.
“Vivienne’s commitment to making a better world through her environmental activism was inspirational,” Will McCallum, the co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, said.
“She saw the urgency of the climate crisis with clarity and demanded action with passion. If we could all live this ideal the world would be a better place. Our thoughts go out to Vivienne’s family and friends.”
Others including the writer and anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe recalled the appearance of Westwood in the turret of a tank that was driven in 2015 to the then prime minister David Cameron’s home in Oxfordshire in a protest against fracking.
Monroe added: “She was at the forefront of climate change campaigning, gender-neutral fashion designs, a psephologist of activism, purveyor of the only dresses my weird little misshapen body has ever felt alive and at home in.”
Describing Westwood as “a rebel at heart”, Stella Assange said the wedding dress the designer had gifted for her wedding to Julian Assange inside Belmarsh prison in March this year had taken the event “to the next level”.
Westwood had been a prominent supporter of the WikiLeaks founder and suspended herself in a birdcage in 2020 to protest against US attempts to extradite him from the UK.
“Her gift to us took our wedding to the next level so there was a lot of attention and she just had this incredible talent for visuals and for messaging,” added Assange.
Born in the Derbyshire village of Tintwistle in 1941, Westwood moved with her family to London in 1957, where she attended art school for one term. A self-taught designer with no formal fashion training, Westwood learned how to make clothes as a teenager by following patterns and by taking apart secondhand clothes she found at markets in order to understand the cut and construction.
She met the band manager Malcolm McLaren in the 1960s while working as a primary school teacher after separating from her first husband, Derek Westwood. The pair opened a small shop on King’s Road in Chelsea in 1971 that became a haunt of many of the bands she outfitted, including Sex Pistols, who were managed by McLaren.
Her provocative and sometimes controversial designs came to define the punk aesthetic and Westwood would become one of Britain’s most celebrated fashion designers, blending historical references, classic tailoring and romantic flourishes with harder-edged and sometimes overtly political messages.
Since her earliest punk days, Westwood remixed and inverted imagery drawn from the British monarchy. When she was granted an Order of the British Empire medal in 1992, the designer wore a sober grey skirt suit to accept the honour from Queen Elizabeth II. Outside Buckingham Palace, she gave a twirl to waiting photographers, revealing to all the world that she had worn no knickers.
Westwood was invited back in 2006 to receive the even more auspicious designation of Dame Commander of the British Empire.
Westwood wrote regularly on climate and social justice on her website No Man’s Land. Last month she made a statement of support for the climate protesters who threw soup on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, writing: “Young people are desperate. They’re wearing a T-shirt that says: Just Stop Oil. They’re doing something.”
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