“If in doubt, dress up. Don’t ever dress down – you’ll be so disappointed.”
Died one year ago today: fashion visionary, doyenne of punk, iconoclast and provocateur, environmental activist, true eccentric British original and Tintwistle, Cheshire’s finest export, Dame Vivienne Westwood (8 April 1941 – 29 December 2022). Who else would rock up to Buckingham Palace in an exquisitely tailored suit to collect her OBE medal (like she did in 1992) – and then afterward twirl for photographers to reveal she was wearing no panties beneath? (There are great photos online documenting that moment, but if I post one here, I’ll wind up in Facebook jail). What other designer would urge the public to buy LESS clothes? As a punk fanatic steeped in the lore of the Sex Pistols, making a pilgrimage to the hallowed ground of Westwood’s World’s End boutique on King’s Road (with the sloping, creaking floor) when I first moved to London in 1992 was de rigueur. I bought a shirt that cost £75, which seemed astronomical at the time. Of course, I still wear it on special occasions to this day (even on job interviews). And of course, I hung onto the bag with the orb logo for ages! I was always envious of friends and colleagues who’d casually remark they used to regularly spot Westwood cycling around South London with her vivid dyed-orange hair flying. I only fleetingly encountered her once: at a Christeene gig downstairs at the Soho Theatre a few years ago. Excitement rippled through the crowd when Westwood and her entourage arrived. Everyone knew they were in the presence of greatness.
England, Merseyside, Bootle, Young girls in street playing with their reflections in shop window, 1975. (Photo by: Dave Fobister/Eye Ubiquitous/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
I always loved Jessica McCaskill style it has some brutality and softness at the same time , she always can show off well her African background, her fantastic Africa made curls
Born on this day 83 years ago (19 September 1940): effervescent and eccentric fuchsia-haired doyenne of British fashion, Dame Zandra Rhodes. She is of course the undisputed queen of the elaborately bejewelled float-y chiffon caftan, but I prefer Rhodes’ response to the rise of punk in 1977. To the revulsion of punk purists, Rhodes launched her own deluxe haute couture interpretation of punk fashion, with artful jagged rips and tears, embellished with glittering safety pins and chains! Some have claimed this made her “the high priestess of punk”, although I suspect the late Vivienne Westwood disagreed. Anyway, over the decades her clientele has numbered international jet set superstar names like Elizabeth Taylor, Jacqueline Kennedy, Cher, Bianca Jagger, Barbra Streisand and Princesses Margaret and Diana. But as far as I’m concerned, no one looked better in Rhodes’ signature caftans than drag mega-star Divine! (Rhodes and Divine were friends in the 1980s and in fact the only times I’ve ever spotted Rhodes socially, it’s been backstage at John Waters’ events in London, accompanied by Helena Kennedy QC and transgender trailblazer April Ashley). Pictured: portrait of Rhodes by Alun Callender, 2022.