Rebel, activist and high priestess of fashion Dame Vivienne Westwood talks to Time Out's Jeremy Lawrence about style and substance.

‘I will not be dictated to,’ says a defiant Vivienne Westwood. It’s a statement that should come as no surprise to anybody who has ever had a passing interest in Britain’s most celebrated fashion doyenne. Westwood has, after all, spent her entire career being uncompromising and anti-establishment.

It all goes back to the ’70s, when Westwood first came to public attention. While the rest of the world was enamoured with hippies and folk music, she busied herself promoting anarchy through clothing, both from the wares she sold at her central London store, and with her own designs soon after. It was the naissance of the punk and new wave movements and Westwood was at the epicentre.

Her ripped-up style employed safety pins and graphic prints that ‘vandalised’ symbols of the establishment, such as the famed Queen Elizabeth II T-shirt that quickly became synonymous with bands such as The Sex Pistols. ‘At the time,’ Westwood recalls, ‘the Queen was the personification of English hypocrisy.’

Since these first rebellious antics almost 40 years ago, Westwood’s career has continued along the same vein. She still owns the London shop, though it only stocks her ‘Anglomania’ line of clothes. And, as a designer, she’s always remained true to herself and firmly on the cutting edge. It’s only her worldwide appeal and eminence that has evolved.
Still, rather than view our chat as a necessary evil (as so many public figures of her stature do), she uses it as an opportunity to wax lyrical – from rhetorically stabbing her fabric shears into dilettante designers (‘It is a sickness of the modern age that people think that they can do what they want to without taking the time to master the discipline in the first place’) to the plight of the environment (‘$30billion is the annual amount required to achieve total regeneration of the rainforests’).

Gone are the spiky edges of Westwood’s past, but age (she turned 69 last April) has done little to quell her lust for controversy. Isn’t it, however, becoming more difficult to cause a hullabaloo now that opposing views are given a mainstream audience? Not so, declares the designer. ‘It’s becoming increasingly difficult in this age of conformity for people to express their opinions. To have a choice has become political. It allows people to discriminate. To choose rather than just suck up rubbish.’

Superficially, there seems to be an irony here.but is also planning to conquer the Middle East.

For the full article check out Time Out Beirut issue 25