LONDON — “When in doubt, dress up!”
That was a person of Vivienne Westwood’s quite a few mottos and the costume code for her sophisticated, candlelit memorial company that took place Thursday afternoon at Southwark Cathedral, on the edges of the bustling Borough Current market in southeast London.
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Buddies, acolytes and fellow designers including Marc Jacobs, Victoria Beckham, Paul Smith, Zandra Rhodes and Bella Freud took Westwood at her word, streaming into the Gothic cathedral in their finery to fork out tribute to the revolutionary designer and activist, who died Dec. 29 at age 81.
There was Stephen Jones sporting a floppy velvet crown, Westwood T-shirt and ’70s bondage trousers Matty Bovan with eyeliner sketched throughout his face, just like Westwood employed to wear it, and Helena Bonham Carter, spectacular in tartan and platforms, her multicolored hair piled significant on her head.
“Maybe we really should converse to the king about a acquiring a nationwide Vivienne Westwood working day,” said the actress at the start off of her brief and witty eulogy. She described the designer as a “true feminist” who was ready to remodel girls on the outside the house, and the inside of.
“The attire do all the operate for you,” reported Bonham Carter, including that she can put absent a whole English breakfast and a bacon roll and nevertheless appear fantastic in her slinky Westwood Cocotte attire. “Even on a unwanted fat day, I really feel like a girl. No diet necessary.”
Bonham Carter praised Westwood, who drew closely on 18th-century costume, for giving her the likelihood to “wear a Fragonard” rather than see it caught on the wall of a museum. Bonham Carter explained the models are so magical that she would not be stunned if they received up at evening and danced with every single other.
The provider was a cultural feast, reflecting the passions and interests of the late designer. Westwood may perhaps be synonymous with punk and renowned for plundering record for her hot, swashbuckling layouts, but her passions have been broad and the understanding never stopped.
Producing clothing was a little something she enjoyed, and was excellent at, but it was distinct from Thursday’s purchase of assistance that Westwood’s passion for trend was eclipsed by her devotion to her loved ones, her politics and a desire to suitable the world’s wrongs.
She campaigned for the ecosystem, social justice, and for the flexibility of her longtime friend Julian Assange, who continues to be in British jail and faces costs in the U.S. for publishing classified and diplomatic documents.
Assange was barred by British authorities from attending Westwood’s funeral final thirty day period in England’s Peak District (the place the designer grew up), and from Thursday’s service, far too.
Westwood was a lifelong learner who started her career as a major school trainer and was a voracious reader till the stop.
Her husband and style and design heir Andreas Kronthaler, whom she achieved even though teaching trend style at the Vienna University of Applied Art, said she put in her last months looking through Chinese poetry.
In her later several years she commenced creating her own poetry, converted to Taoism and persisted with her lots of activist campaigns. “She challenged everybody to do much better by educating themselves” and standing up to injustice, said Westwood’s granddaughter Cora Corré.
Dressed in a extraordinary black jacket with broad shoulders and Elizabethan swagger, Corré mentioned her grandmother “remained accurate to her inner pressure, and considered that with sincerity of application, anything is achievable.”
Reading through wasn’t Westwood’s only love. At the commence of Thursday’s service, Arnfield Brass, a band from the Peak District, played songs ranging from “The Seem of Music” typical “Do-Re-Mi” to Miles Davis’ “Concierto de Aranguez” and Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”
At one particular stage the Australian musician Nick Cave performed piano and sang “Into My Arms” although Maria Ladurner sang George Frideric Handel’s “How Wonderful Are the Feet” and Chrissie Hynde crooned “Raining in My Heart.”
Westwood herself extra a light touch to the proceedings in a movie produced by her brother Gordon Swire named “My Sister Vivienne.”
In it, she talks about growing up in Derbyshire, “the most lovely location in England,” her love of mother nature, a childhood put in skipping rope and singing tunes with her girlfriends, and teenage years spent “drinking whisky,” dancing and kissing boys.
“By the time I was 18, I’d had about 200 boyfriends,” she says in the movie. “But it was just snogging. Almost nothing far more than that.”
The punk rebel — and owner of the Intercourse boutique — would arise later.
“It was youth against age,” she suggests of the punk motion, incorporating that her antiestablishment views derived partly from the U.S. war in Vietnam. She was angry for the reason that “some of the folks who brought about the war ended up however in electric power. They preferred to exploit low cost labor in the location. We didn’t need these fellas telling us what to do,” she states.
The clothes had been a reward. “Punk was so glamorous. You just seemed unbelievable,” suggests the designer, who beloved donning her political statements on her sleeves (and T-shirt)s. “Wear a slogan, and that thought will distribute,” she says.
Through the service Westwood sprang to daily life in so several techniques. Her youthful son, Joseph Corré, mentioned she remaining him specific directions prior to she died. “She left us all extensive to-do lists. This was my mine: quit war, end local weather change, combat for human rights,” he explained, stifling a snicker.
Friends, who also included Kate Moss, Tracey Emin, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson, Beth Ditto and Bob Geldof remembered her each as a fiery spirit and the queen of awesome.
Rhodes said she marvels at how Westwood was able to be a designer and an activist concurrently. “Somehow, she built it do the job. She managed to do it all,” mentioned the designer.
Jones liked her but explained “she was not easy. I was terrified of her. We labored together and she improved my daily life. She produced me believe.”
Jacobs, who attended with Beckham and whose clearly show previously this month was a tribute to Westwood, claimed that when he was a teenager going clubbing “only the coolest children wore Vivienne Westwood — it wasn’t even available in the U.S. at the time. If you wore it, you had been part of a very elite team. Her clothes just resonate with youthful individuals. It’s tough to explain that vitality.”
Ellen von Unwerth stated she generally loved photographing Westwood’s garments. “They were being captivating and exquisite with hoop skirts and stockings, and a tiny bit kinky, much too. The ladies experienced so substantially fun on her runway — I constantly desired to shoot everything, and don it, too, of training course.”
— With contributions from Violet Goldstone
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