Dame Vivienne Westwood, fashion designer, dies aged 81

The iconoclastic fashion designer’s creative partner and husband says ‘I will continue with Vivienne in my heart’

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British fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood has died in London, her representatives said in a statement.

Westwood died “peacefully, surrounded by her family” in Clapham, south London on Thursday, the statement added.

The 81-year-old’s 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.”

Westwood, a former primary school teacher, rose to prominence in the 1970s. Her provocative and sometimes controversial designs came to define the punk aesthetic.

She outfitted many bands of the era, including the Sex Pistols, from the shop she co-ran with then partner Malcolm McLaren.

From the 1980s onwards, Westwood became one of Britain’s most celebrated fashion designers, blending historical references, classic tailoring and romantic flourishes with harder edged and sometimes overtly political messages.

Tributes poured in for the designer. On Instagram, photographer Nick Knight described her as “an amazing woman and an amazing designer”.

Fashion commentator Derek Blasberg said that while textbooks may remember Westwood for “ushering in London’s counterculture scene to high fashion … I think she’d want to be remembered most for her advocacy, specifically [concerning] global warming”.

He added: “The last time I saw her, in 2020, she was (and this not a joke) dressed up like a yellow canary and swinging inside a giant birdcage stationed outside London’s criminal courthouse, Old Bailey. Her life was aggressive, relentless and fabulous. A total original.”

The representatives’ statement said she continued to do the things she loved, including designing, working on her book and making art, “up until the last moment”.

The representatives said Westwood considered herself a Taoist – a follower of the Chinese philosophy of Taoism – and they issued a statement previously made by Westwood on the subject.

“Tao spiritual system. There was never more need for the Tao today,” she wrote. “Tao gives you a feeling that you belong to the cosmos and gives purpose to your life; it gives you such a sense of identity and strength to know you’re living the life you can live and therefore ought to be living: make full use of your character and full use of your life on Earth.”