She may spend much of her time on soapboxes — or marching, megaphone in hand — in her battle to thwart climate change and global monopolies, but Dame Vivienne Westwood can still stage a whopper of a fashion show, closing London Fashion Week Men’s with a fall outing in a grand London gymnasium.
Westwood brought the curtain down on the four-day showcase with a powerful lineup of unisex looks full of pageantry, ragtag patchwork and paper crowns adorned with bits of bubble wrap or used pill packs. “We’re a high fashion company — a happy company. It’s rather artisan,” read the notes for the show, which marked her return to the London catwalk with the new, coed Vivienne Westwood collection.
In the hands of a lesser designer, the outing would have been gimmicky — what with the rough fabrics, childlike stitching on ties and blanket capes and political slogans slapped onto tops and trousers — but Westwood made her point with panache, scalpel-sharp tailoring and her signature tucking and draping.
Like so many London designers, she played with deconstruction for fall.
There was a belted wool dress fashioned from colored patches that looked like camouflage, a pair of dark velvet culottes with silvery moon and star patches, and tunic tops that resembled fishing nets, patched here and there with scrappy bits of knitwear. Naif-looking faces were stitched — in different color threads — onto neckties and dramatic, raw-edged capes that swooshed as models walked.
Tailoring was also a big part of the show, as in a snappy corduroy and plaid suit worn with narrow cropped trousers, while off-the-shoulder evening dresses — in crinkly, shiny gold fabric or corseted black tulle — were modeled by women and men, many of whom wore paper crowns.
“For at least 100 years women have been wearing trousers, but now like the Arabs, men are wearing dresses,” said Westwood, who took a long, smiling bow on Monday, dressed in a waistcoat and necktie.