Christina Hendricks, another of her muses, remembers her as “intimidating, but loved when someone would spar with her a bit.”
“I remember so clearly the things she said—always direct, sometimes uncomfortable, but always true,” says Susie Cave, who was her star model for a decade. “That was her power—her fierce intelligence, her ability to challenge not only with words but with the very nature of her clothes.”
Jones, who made crowns for Westwood’s Harris Tweed collection using fabric off-cuts finished with felt marker spots—“well, we weren’t going to use ermine,” he says, drily—is crafting a suite of custom headpieces for the NGV’s exhibition. “Oh, she’d probably criticize them,” he says, laughing. “I’d absolutely listen to what she had to say, and then I would say, ‘Vivienne, I think it’s best like this.’ And then we’d arm wrestle about it.” Westwood died in December 2022, at the age of 81. There will never be another. Before her death, she established The Vivienne Foundation, a nonprofit led by her son Joe Corré, who she charged with continuing her work as an activist. Corré is not involved in the NGV’s exhibition, but chose to speak with Vogue about the enduring impact of his late mother. “When she turned up in a crowd of people to give a speech outside an embassy or outside Downing Street or at the end of her catwalk show, people knew she was going to say something,” Corré remembers. “It might make some people feel uncomfortable, but it was the truth that needed to be heard. It took a lot of courage to do that, but she never shied away from it. That’s the voice that not just I miss, but all the people I talk to miss. The amount of messages and letters I get with people saying we need Vivienne’s voice right now … Her voice is missing. Where has it gone?”
Kate Moss, Vivienne Westwood, and Naomi Campbell, 1993.Photo: Dave Benett/Getty Images
Kate Moss, Model
“Vivienne Westwood was the first label I bought as a teenager—you had to have something from Westwood in Croydon in the ’80s. I saved up for weeks and got myself a pair of faux-croc prostitute shoes in the sale. Vivienne was a rebel—she didn’t conform and she didn’t care what people thought. But she did care—she cared about the world and she cared about me. She was fabulous. I miss her and fashion isn’t the same without her.”
Juergen Teller, Photographer
“I’ve been working with Vivienne since the early ’90s. She was a brilliant person; very caring when she liked you, very difficult if she didn’t. Her work had incredible energy, whether it was her fashion work or caring about politics and the environment. She had an immense influence on the world. I miss her very much.”
Linda Evangelista in Vivienne Westwood’s “Anglomania” collection, fall 1993.Photo: Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images
Stephen Jones, Milliner
“She was a hero. She was doing everything differently. It wasn’t just about her clothes; it was her appearance, it was the way she moved. It was the whole 360 degrees of her, which was extraordinary and sort of challenging. You still see punks nowadays, and she was really the person who started it. Something came out in Women’s Wear Daily, asking who are the most important designers of the last 150 years? I said Coco Chanel, Christian Dior and Vivienne Westwood. I don’t know if people realize how much Vivienne changed people’s mentalities; not only the clothes, but the whole world she represented, of doing ‘the other’. Without Vivienne there would not be a John Galliano. Without Vivienne there would not be an Alexander McQueen. [Her legacy is] to challenge people. To do things in a different way.”
Susie Cave, Vivienne Westwood, and Sara Stockbridge, 1992.Photo: Dave Benett/Getty Images
Susie Cave, Designer
“Her clothes dared you to wear them, to ride tall and proud against the stares of disdain, to step onto the street held high with the defiant cry: ‘This is who I am. Make way.’ Being chosen by Vivienne to work for her was the greatest honour. Those times with Vivienne, Andreas [Kronthaler] and, of course, Sara Stockbridge were unforgettable. Sara, who I thought was the greatest girl ever to walk the earth. I was in love with her, awed by her. I often played the man when we went out together—she was so utterly feminine and beautiful. I have a perfect image of her in my mind: a tiny black Vivienne mini-skirt and corset, white stockings, frilly lace knickers, her blonde hair in golden curls, walking down the King’s Road. Cars collided as she waved at them; people stopped in their tracks to gawp. The extreme sexiness of the cut of her clothes paired with the slogan on her T-shirt: ‘Truth loves to go naked.’
