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I think what you'll have to let me do is not ask me,
"Is that the first time you went to America?" or anything like that.
I think you just let me just talk and just get it over with.
I think that's it.
And, um, 'cause, you know, if you stop and I think, "Oh, I've got to think
"about that part of it now, have I? Can't I just...
"Do we have to cover every bit of it?" You know?
[SIGHS] Anyway, you know, I will get into it,
but it's so boring to say all the...
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
VIVIENNE WESTWOOD: I've got spatial intelligence.
As a child of five, I could have made a pair of shoes.
It's for a pocket, that's why I drew me hand on it first.
Sometimes a question is put to me, "Will you ever retire?"
What I say is if people retire,
they do what they like
and I'm doing what I want in the sense that I feel I ought to do it,
but if I really could do what I want,
what I would do is I would learn Chinese.
[INDISTINCT CHATTERING]
WESTWOOD: I mean, I think that that blue one there is quite good actually.
I think, just for a change. I think it's fine,
but the multi colour, no, not so good, is it? Okay.
-And the hair, Vivienne? -Sorry?
The hair? The black girl?
No, the hair looks lovely. I like the hair.
And, um, let's just try how with her hair taken back,
just to see if I like that better?
I think she looks better, yeah.
-Pushed back a little bit further? -Yeah.
No, I don't like that at all.
No, take it off.
I don't remember doing this.
Fuck them, they're just disgusting.
We did such a nice thing.
What's with this tiny hem?
-How did that happen? -ASSISTANT 1: You said that.
-We decided we wanted a small hem? -Yes.
-Are you sure? -Yes.
Why did I want a small hem?
ASSISTANT 2: That's what I had taken in my notes, saying here...
WESTWOOD: I actually told you, "Put a small hem there?"
I would never have said that.
Uh, just in the drawing it was, so I just judged...
Well, next time you make a judgement, don't make a judgement.
Just get it into your head, I like a big rib.
I don't like this tiny rib.
It's crap! I really don't like it!
Anyway, so I don't know if I want to show any of this shit,
and I don't know what the fuck this is!
I don't know what I'm doing. It's a mess.
It's my fault, it's just not good.
MAN: I think you should not do this thing.
WESTWOOD: I don't want to do it any more. What do we do?
What do we do about it? Who does do it?
Let's just close the company.
I was quite interested at doing it next season,
but when I look at that,
I don't know why it turned out not good.
I like the Princess coats.
WESTWOOD: Anyway, I'm just totally bored talking about this,
but you need it, so I'll tell you.
From the age of 11-12 I made my own clothes.
When I was little, I saw a picture of the Crucifixion
and it really did change my life.
And I thought to myself,
"My parents, they've been deceiving me.
"They've told me all about baby Jesus,
"but they never told me what happened to him."
And I just thought, "I can't trust the people in this world.
"I've got to find out for myself.
"This kind of thing can't happen."
[ALARM BLARING]
I did feel that I had to be like a knight
to stop people doing terrible things to each other.
And I think that's had something to do with my fashion clothes as well.
It's always got to be that.
You know, you've got to cut a figure
and be prepared for action,
and engagement with things.
[AUDIENCE APPLAUDS]
Just before I was 17,
my art teacher, Mr Bell,
he had the idea that I should go to art school.
I stayed at art school for a term only.
Because we were so working class,
it was like, "How am I going to earn my living?"
And so then I thought, "I know.
"I will go to teacher training college
"and take art as my main subject
"and I'll try to be an artist.
"And then if I can't be an artist,
"I can be a school teacher."
And that's what I decided to do.
We had beehives then, '60s was coming.
White shoes. Oh, God, I loved them!
With little lace-ups like a nurse. Oh, they were...
They were fantastic.
Rock-and-roll was just starting
and as a teenager,
I wanted to do what all the other teenagers were doing.
That's where I met Derek Westwood in the end, yeah.
He was a great dancer, that Derek, very good dancer.
REPORTER: [ON RADIO] Back from their honeymoon,
she and Tim are headed for a life of wedded bliss.
They think.
WESTWOOD: I grew up with the idea
that you're supposed to stay with one man.
You're supposed to find the "one" man.
What we were actually living was the American Dream.
The housewife, all smiling, all lovely little hairstyle,
and crisp with an apron on and everything,
and hubby comes home,
and he's got ideal family
and somehow that's it, that's all you see.
But the American Dream stops there.
I just realize, "No, no, it's all a load of old rubbish.
"What a lot of old bollocks that is."
Somehow I had to explore. I had to get out.
I got married when I was 21 and had Ben at 22.
And Derek and I split up
and mostly because I was not fulfilling my potential
to understand something about the world.
BEN WESTWOOD: I remember Malcolm turning up.
I sort of remember my mother and Malcolm from when I was about five.
I remember...
We used to live in a flat in the Oval
near the cricket ground.
And Malcolm was very hot-headed and quite young.
And he didn't want children around him,
he didn't have much patience for us.
WESTWOOD: I stopped teaching.
I had two children, Joe and Ben.
Anyway, Joe was Malcolm's son and he was born...
Malcolm was ill,
and I looked after him and that's how it all began.
I didn't want him at all
but I felt that I'd misled him by being too kind to him.
When I had Joe, I wanted to have an abortion
and I really wasn't happy at all,
and one day, I suddenly realised, "This man is gold.
"What am I doing?"
We went to Compendium bookshop.
We went to the Marxist shop in Chinatown.
He came from a Jewish family.
They knew the world.
I was really a woman on a mission.
'Cause I knew I was stupid
and I had to discover what was going on in the world.
PHOTOGRAPHER: Vivienne, thanks so much.
Malcolm had the idea of buying up these old rock and roll records,
and he thought that he could sell them to trendy people.
My favourite shop, Mr. Freedom, was at 430 King's Road,
that's still my shop.
That shop has got really a lot of history.
It was the first this, the first that.
Anyway, it wasn't doing very well,
so the shop manager invited us
to have the back half of the shop,
to sell our records in.
I borrowed some money off my mother, a hundred pound.
And, erm, that's when I started also making clothes.
We called it Let It Rock.
Every time we changed the name of the shop,
we changed the clothes, you know.
It's like doing a new collection each time.
Malcolm had the idea
that we were going to confront the establishment through sex.
Because he said, "England is the home of the flasher."
His slogan was, "Rubber wear for the office."
He was very clever, Malcolm,
literarily and everything, except he never read anything.
Why the hell does anybody need this?
Can't you get a bit of old footage or something?
No, you can't. No, you can't, I know that.
[SIGHS]
Anyway, um...
He was interested in those '50s pin-ups
where you've got girls who are just there.
They've just been washed up by a ship wreck on the beach.
And they're all torn, you know?
I'm wearing something torn right now.
It's really great, this.
I'll get up later on. It's all got this torn edge. Love it!
INTERVIEWER: Shall we jump to the Sex Pistols and how they came about?
No, I can't be bothered with them either.
I don't know what we're going to do.
Really, if I've got to talk about the Sex Pistols...
Have you finished?
CURATOR: This is the "Destroy" muslin t-shirt.
It's one of the most important pieces that Westwood and McLaren created.
The garment is made from muslin.
The sleeves
are very long and they fold back
and then this would clip on to here,
so making it
more wearable,
but the notion of distortion of the sleeves,
it reminds one a little bit of a straitjacket.
But it's really all about the imagery.
So here you've got a swastika,
an inverted crucifix,
the word "Destroy" and then lyrics from Sex Pistols,
"I am an Antichrist."
And what Westwood and McLaren were doing with these punk garments
was confronting society.
WESTWOOD: We invented punk.
Malcolm had just come back from America.
He'd been managing The New York Dolls,
and he put together a group, a pop group,
from our Saturday boy Glen
and a couple of our costumers,
and Johnny Rotten was quite a phenomenon.
And he hasn't changed from being that phenomenon, unfortunately.
He should have changed to something else by now.
Now then...
My favourite shop is the Worlds End Shop.
And we still sell stuff we designed at the time of punk.
Actually, they look good on you.
They do look good on you.
And every time I design something,
it has to have a story. It's got a character.
I think that that story is part of a kind of a nostalgia
that people can tap into.
I mean things like this are reminiscent
of Greek peasant costumes,
this little kilt and like the tartan for this jacket and everything.
It's got...
I don't know, it's got an old sort of feeling to it.
A little bit to do with
rather sort of bandits in the countryside,
that kind of thing. Something that you might have seen
at the Battle of Culloden, something like that.
And I just think that
'cause it's got such content in there
and such a way to connect with the human expression.
You know, how you walk, how you talk,
you know, how you attract people.
And I just think that that's why my clothes are timeless.
REPORTER: Dame Vivienne Westwood.
This is a lady whose global popularity knows no bounds.
A Dame who personifies the powerful
and subversive originality of British fashion.
Ladies and gentlemen, may we present Dame Vivienne Westwood.
ANDREAS KRONTHALER: There's Vivienne, you know, the fashion designer.
There is Vivienne, the campaigner.
And then there is Vivienne,
the person, you know?
[CHATTERING INDISTINCTLY]
I like them all ever such a lot.
But I really like Vivienne, the person.
I don't know why.
I'm so...
[SIGHS]
There is this word "love," you know?
In love with her. I really don't know.
I just...
I don't know if this is...
You know, they speak about the love of your life and...
I don't know, is it...
Was it lucky? Was it not lucky? I don't know.
Nice. Yes!
It has never changed.
If anything, it became stronger and stronger,
the bond.
I like everything about her.
PHOTOGRAPHER: That's great, that's great. Yes.
KRONTHALER: The smell, the way the hair falls
to every millimetre of her little body.
Everything.
[CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING]
PHOTOGRAPHER: And now, just... Yeah, fantastic.
WESTWOOD: The best compliment I can pay Andreas
is that I actually like living with him as much as being on my own.
-A hat. I really look ridiculous. -[CHUCKLES]
I accepted a teaching job,
first in Austria,
because I did need the money.
The line is under the bust
and then it's coming up here in between.
And it's where I met Andreas.
And then Andreas came with a group of students from Vienna to England
at the time when I was doing a fashion show.
Of course, I gave them seats to watch this fashion show,
they were my students.
And at the end of it, Andreas, I thought he was really cheeky,
he didn't say it was great, he gave me the idea
that there was a lot of room for improvement.
He stayed and he worked on the next collection.
KRONTHALER: It was the old studio and she just let me live there.
Dirty old place.
Every night when once they left, I would, you know,
get out this piece of leopard fur
under a table and sleep on it on the floor.
You know, in all this mess.
I even had fleas at one point.
But it was very romantic
and this place was full of cardboard boxes
and in these cardboard boxes was all the archive and clothes,
and I would study them, you know.
Soon as everybody was gone I would open them up
and look at these things
and, you know, sometimes would actually wear them
and go out in them.
It was fantastic.
Yeah. It was heaven.
It was the real thing.
It was the thing I always wanted.
I just felt so happy.
I never went back.
What is it? It's changing before me eyes anyway.
-I don't know what's this either. -It's a square.
The back... The front is a simple square,
which is just draped a little bit.
On the front, just a bit of a nothing.
It's just thrown on you, a bit of cloth.
WESTWOOD: He straight away started telling us what to do.
Here, or it can be just to here. It's just a little square...
-An apron or a dress? -It's an apron.
But if I pin in the back...
WESTWOOD: He's so passionate about things
that you just have to do what he says.
People who'd worked with me for quite a bit were very suspicious of him
and he had to be careful and they're just thinking,
"Who does he think he is?" You know,
"Telling us to do this, that and the other."
Have you got a picture of that anywhere?
WESTWOOD: But they soon began to realise how talented he was
and so we all went along with it.
CORRE: I suppose I have to be honest and say
I think in the beginning, I was quite suspicious of Andreas
because, "Who's this fucking guy?
I mean, he looks a bit kind of gay.
I don't know, he's kind of wants to marry my mum
and he's half her age
and, you know, "What's all this about?"
REPORTERS: Vivienne!
CORRE: But all I can say is that
over the years that they've been married, it's been a huge relief to me
that's allowed me not to have to worry about my mum at all,
because I know that
he's absolutely besotted by her,
and you know, thinks of her and her well-being
and looks after her in many ways.
And that was a really nice relief, actually.
[CHEERING]
WESTWOOD: People didn't like you for being a punk.
We wanted to undermine the establishment.
The swastika, all these things meant
we don't accept the values of this older generation.
We hate it, we want to destroy it.
We don't want it.
We were youth against age, that's what it was.
But it had affected fashion such a lot.
The hair styles even.
My spiky hair was in Vogue one month later.
And I realised that
we weren't really attacking
the system at all.
It was being marketed all the time.
I just realised that the real marketing opportunity
was that the English society could claim
how democratic and how free they were
that somehow kids could revolt as much as that.
In fact, we weren't attacking the establishment.
We were just part of the distraction.
So this fantastic ensemble is from the Pirate collection
and it's one of the first pieces that the V&A acquired
from Vivienne Westwood.
It was from a time when the shop had become known as Worlds End,
and Vivienne was experimenting with historical dress.
Like the snake print tunic
or the square toed shoes.
She'll take an idea and then chew it over
and shake it and shake it
and come up with the most extraordinary result.
The whole collection was absolutely joyful.
It was a kind of riposte to the darkness of Punk.
She was introducing colour and pattern,
huge voluminous shirts,
clothing that was worn by both men and women.
Clothing that was not about sexual identity,
but was simply about enjoyment of life.
WESTWOOD: I didn't consider myself a fashion designer at all,
but I realised that I was very talented
and I felt that I wanted people to know
that the stuff that was on the Paris catwalk had come from me.
And I just thought, "I must get the benefit of this.
"I must enter this business world
"and start to really sell the clothes and present them to journalists
"and be a fashion designer." I realised that I could be.
REPORTER: What is a self-confessed "fashion anarchist"
doing in bourgeois Paris anyway?
You have to go where you have to go,
you have to do what you have to do,
and I certainly don't want to be underground.
I want to be...
At a place of the most focus that I can find.
WESTWOOD: Malcolm became very jealous of me, when I did fashion
and he went into the music business.
And he used to always pretend that everything was him.
I stayed with Malcolm because I respected him
and had an incredible loyalty to him.
But there came a point where
I sort of completely outran Malcolm.
He'd stopped, really.
His thinking had, kind of, stayed where it was.
So I got intellectually bored with Malcolm.
CORRE: Malcolm split from my mum, and he was horrible when he left.
He was all full of tension, jealousy.
I don't know, he was just one of them sort of people
that when something changes like that in their life,
particularly, I think, because Vivienne had decided that it was over.
She couldn't bear it any longer.
And so he just turned into
a really horrible, spiteful phase of his,
tried to smash everything up, which he sort of did.
At a certain point, it all sort of turned to dust, you know.
And so he went off to Los Angeles
to be this kind of movie producer kind of thing,
you know, Mr. Big Bollocks.
And we were left in Clapham trying to pick up the pieces.
Andreas and I work together.
We both work on the fashion.
And he's been amazing.
There's an awful lot of work needed from a fashion designer
and Andreas does the half of it.
When you do a dress, you've got to
work out how to do everything,
there's every little decision,
you do it more than once.
Does it make her bust smaller? I always keep asking.
Maybe it's got so small 'cause she's losing weight, isn't she?
WESTWOOD: You do one first, then you make it up in the real fabric.
Yeah, a little bit of pads and it's nice.
-A little bit of what? -Shoulder pads.
Then you decide how you're going to sew it.
All the time, you're trying it on people.
KRONTHALER: What do you think, Vivienne?
It's really good now you've done that.
There is something here.
He needs me all the time.
I consider myself at this point in time, as his reference.
Call it "muse." I'm there to say yes or no, or...
"I don't think we should be doing that.
"I think it'd be much better if we tried it this way or..."
Whatever, this kind of thing.
PEPPE LOREFICE: Honestly, everybody knows, "Vivienne, Vivienne, Vivienne, Vivienne."
My real first shock
when I first met them back in 2010,
was the way that she was working with Andreas then.
At that time, 2010 or even before, since he arrived, nobody knew.
That was my real first shock.
It was like, "Wow!"
I thought that she was the designer, she was deciding everything. No.
She was working like 50-50 with him.
-Good? -Do you think so?
'Cause I think it needs something in the back.
I don't like it all see-through...
KRONTHALER: She can have knickers on.
WESTWOOD: Well, she's got knickers on.
I don't like to see the knickers.
KRONTHALER: Is there a tiny bit of cotton taffeta?
WESTWOOD: I mean, that's what we want.
That's exactly what we want, a bit of cotton taffeta.
CHRISTOPHER DI PIETRO: Vivienne and Andreas work in a very particular way
and I think it's a very old-fashioned way,
but it's really how the great couturiers have always worked.
They work with their hands. You know, they work on the body.
It's very physical.
Vivienne's clothes really have a rapport with the body as a result.
LOREFICE: She's really an old style teacher.
He is a mess.
Like a proper student art mess
which from the mess,
from the chaos, he can create.
[INDISTINCT CHATTERING]
KRONTHALER: I like to give my best
and I question what I do constantly.
Of course, there are days where I'm quite content
and maybe happy with who I am or what I have done.
But most of the time, I'm not. I'm really, you know...
It's hard work.
WESTWOOD: I mean, it quite suits this sort of business suit
she's got on to start with.
But if something's cleaner then maybe...
Now, I don't know, but what's her second?
I mean, I quite like her hair scruffy as it is.
I did like it, but I thought if we did like a weird Marilyn version,
lift the scruff up, it'd be quite interesting as well, on her.
Yeah, I like that.
A little cardigan and drapey trousers.
-Like a jogging thing. -If she's got that, okay.
All right, that's nice. Okay, then the clothes are all right with that.
No, that's her first look that one.
Okay, so we have to get this outfit for Grace
and what I want her to do...
Um, somebody should tell her, or I'll tell her.
I'm changing her outfit. Where is she? I'll find her.
Oh, and you've got to change your hair.
I'm going back to change your hair. Where is he?
I'm changing her hair.
WOMAN: Everyone in this area,
you don't need to be standing around here. Move back.
If you're a dresser, stand right next to your rail.
CARLO D'AMARIO: I meet Vivienne.
It was at a fashion show in Paris.
At this time, to do fashion show in Paris
was very prestigious, no?
Okay, for me, "Okay, Vivienne, maybe I find a good customer," you know?
Because this woman was in Paris.
"Maybe there is some money.
"Maybe is a good customer for me."
After two weeks, I'm in London to see Vivienne Westwood
and while I was there
I was very shocked about the situation.
Punk! Oh, dear.
Okay, I want to say, "Okay, bye. Thank you, sorry for that.
"And ciao, bye-bye," and go away.
Or I remain.
This in half second I must have decide.
And the company was completely destroyed.
Okay, we start to work like that.
CORRE: Carlo is funny, I mean, I don't know.
Carlo used to have a business that was selling carpets
and second-hand watches and cars and things.
Kind of hippy trader kind of guy.
I try to take all my connection in Italy with Elio Fiorucci
to produce us in Italy,
to fix the industry with the creativity.
I just happened to need to stay in Italy because that's where I was,
the producers were, and I was designing in a space there,
and working with this factory to begin with.
BELLA FREUD: When I was 22, I was living in Rome.
And then she was working in an Italian factory near Florence.
This factory was producing the Mini-Crini collection
and then when she went to Paris to do the collection, I helped,
and I remember being on the train with all the kind of final pieces
that had been done at the last minute,
and I was sleeping on the seats.
And then the show, you know, suddenly,
there was this show in Paris and it was just mind-blowing.
The most beautiful things.
And all the spot shirts and...
It was just unlike anything else.
It was so... Really being part of that,
you really felt like you were at the...
You know, it was something germinating and it just kept on and on.
It was wonderful.
[CHEERING]
[WHISTLING]
D'AMARIO: One day I go with Fiorucci in '85.
"Elio, I need to find the people to sponsor Vivienne."
Elio say, "Don't worry. I call to Giorgio Armani."
At this time, Giorgio Armani was like Pope.
We speak with his partner.
"Okay, I want to produce Vivienne."
Good.
I'm rich.
"Okay, sign the contract." £350,000 a year guarantee.
£350,000 at this time was a fortune. Okay.
WESTWOOD: Carlo had got a couple of really good opportunities for me,
but they were destroyed by Malcolm,
saying "You can't work with this woman, she's my partner.
"Your agreement with her is totally rubbish, you're wasting your money."
You know, "I'm going to take you to court."
It was that. I'd forgotten Malcolm by then.
And we lose the contract in a few words, it went... [MIMICS EXPLOSION]
WESTWOOD: When those things fell through,
I found myself back in England
and at that point I had to go and get Social Security.
I didn't have any money at all.
CORRE: I think we got a loan from my grandmother, Vivienne's mother, Dora,
because The Worlds End Shop had just been closed for,
don't know, a year and a half, two years? Something like that.
Erm, but the landlords hadn't rented it to anybody else
it was just still sitting there,
and even had a bit of stock still left in the back.
BEN WESTWOOD: My grandfather had just died
and my grandmother was at a loose end
so she came down to London, so this was 1985,
she came down to London and she worked here.
She'd worked in her own shop before,
so she knew what she was doing.
CORRE: And Vivienne also started to make a few things
on her old sewing machine again, to put in the store.
BEN: I had a driving licence and a car,
so I used to go and do pick up the rolls of fabric
and go to shirt makers and go to the tailor up in Camden Town.
CORRE: And we opened the store again.
And even when we opened the store,
for the first three months, that had no electric in it
because that was all cut off and was trying
to light the store with candles and you know?
FREUD: I went back to London and then I started as her assistant.
Malcolm would behave really badly
and he'd made it very difficult for her,
and she just carried on working, she was working from her flat,
and it was just the two of us for a while.
Then, Murray started working,
and all sorts of people came but, that was way before Andreas.
MURRAY BLEWETT: I was 23, and I was a very young sort of 23, I guess.
And I was so honoured to be, sort of...
It was a big deal for me.
It was in Camden Town.
Carlo D'Amario used to call it Bombay.
It was really great. It was above an old carpet shop.
It was really rancid, really rickety and old,
and I loved it.
FREUD: You know, the people that were involved,
it was as if they'd discovered the meaning of life,
and it was the meaning of life.
It's funny how clothes can be so emotional,
the making of these things that you put on
and they make you able to face the world,
and in a kind of, you know, spectacular way.
WESTWOOD: I had a success to start with.
But the way it works is that when you are new and you do something new,
then everybody's on to you. They've discovered this new thing,
and they all want to discover you all at the same time.
Then, you just get left and they want to know what's the next latest thing,
that's how the English press treated me.
I was always treated well in Italy.
TV HOST: I know every time you do a collection, they say,
"Crikey, Viv's blown it," don't they?
They say Viv's blown it, we don't know whether Viv's blown it this time
because this is the new collection, what's it called?
Well, I'd like to describe it, it's called Time Machine, this one.
HOST: Time Machine, here we go.
[AUDIENCE CHUCKLES]
Tell us about this one then.
FREUD: When she started, people mocked her.
Are people supposed to laugh? I mean, they're laughing.
FREUD: I remember when she was on the Terry Wogan Show,
everyone laughed.
I mean, they didn't show the audience, which was literally...
Everyone was over about 80.
HOST: I mean, what's so...
If they don't stop laughing,
I shall tell the next person not to come on.
HOST: Oh, dear, you're not to laugh.
Is this a winter collection?
Yeah.
And I've never met this response before.
It's like Vivienne had been invited on the show to be a joke.
It was like she almost had to justify herself.
You design these clothes not because they're witty
but because you believe they are attractive
and they make people more attractive?
Yeah, that's it, yeah.
It really made me furious but she didn't give a fuck.
She came out at the end and she said,
"Oh, that was just the best reaction I have had since punk."
And on that note, we haven't upset you, have we?
-No. Not in the least. -You're very kind.
Listen, I don't mind, in fact I'm quite pleased,
but I usually don't get that kind of reaction. It's strange.
Get this reaction, ladies and gentlemen, Vivienne Westwood.
[AUDIENCE APPLAUDS]
CORRE: But there was loads and loads of that
where she was always considered the sort of joke, you know?
And in the end, they couldn't ignore her any more.
WESTWOOD: I can't remember at what point the company became successful,
but eventually it did.
I'm still not happy with my company
because at this point in time,
it's actually expanded too much for me.
Just the stripes are wrong, that's why it's not fastened.
WESTWOOD: I'm in danger of not being able to control everything properly,
and I certainly don't need to sell anything I don't like.
I don't know who's in charge of this kind of thing.
Who's going to tell the factory that this is unacceptable?
That's what I want to know.
I don't even know who is going to tell them.
Don't worry, I'll find out.
It's very lucky we tried it on,
otherwise, nothing would have happened with this.
WESTWOOD: I need to reduce my product,
and I'm having to sort of pull it back and rework things all the time,
so that nothing gets left,
so it gets tacky or it's done in not a good way or something.
And, therefore, I don't want to expand
because that means I can't, you know, look after
the problem that's close to me well enough,
'cause I've got too many things to deal with.
This is Marcia who, of course, hasn't been introduced properly.
Yeah, hello, Marcia, I see.
So she, now, is responsible, I've found, for selling this collection.
Yeah, wait a minute, Marcia, did you sell it to Gregor yesterday?
-Yes, we did. -'Cause he said you didn't know anything.
The person who didn't know your name,
but you said she didn't understand the collection at all.
So, that's you.
So now I've interrupted, what do you want to tell me? Murray?
I just wanted to introduce you,
I mean, I've been working with Marcia today,
she's getting a lot more informed now.
Okay, and it's probably not your fault at all,
-you know, I mean, but because... -Let's change it up...
No, it's not, it's not just that,
it's just that the connections aren't here.
The company has grown and it has become very big
and she can't just press a button and undo all that.
She's got a duty to support the people
who are here who have worked for her.
And it's very difficult to just undo some of those decisions
that have been made, not by her, by the way.
You know, I don't know anything about the marketing people, as I've said.
I don't know what they do.
I don't know what information they need from me.
Erm, maybe there should be some way that these people
start to understand early on what they're doing with the collection.
-Mmm-hmm. -I'm really, really, you know, just so frustrated
as to trying to find out what the heck they're doing.
I mean, they're wandering about doing, I think, damage.
I really don't know.
And I'm still of that opinion, I still haven't found out what they do.
They explain to me, ever so patiently always, what they do
and I come away and I don't know what they've been talking about really.
DI PIETRO: I think some things were not exactly how she had envisaged them,
um, and we are tweaking the concept, which is a normal thing.
A company has to have some kind of growth plan
but it's not about world domination.
All right then, okay.
It is about your visibility as a brand.
HOST: We're honoured, ma'am, that you're able to be with us this evening,
to present the 1990 Designer of the Year Award.
CORRE: That fashion industry was so against her from day one,
they never liked her,
and they didn't like to see her kind of come up.
You know, it was embarrassing
going to those fashion award things
where they kept giving out the Designer of the Year
to everybody else apart from her.
Well, the winner, Vivienne Westwood.
ANNOUNCER: Designer of the Year couldn't have gone to anyone else this year
other than Vivienne Westwood.
The designers have made their thoughts known over the last couple of days
and the fashion press have positively demanded it.
Good evening, everyone.
[CHEERING]
Oh!
MAN: I think as a designer she's a loose cannon, really.
Fashion needs continuity and an actual design philosophy,
which I don't think she has.
-HOST: But is she good? -Not in my opinion, no.
CORRE: It just was a joke, you know.
And in the end, they had to give it to her twice in a row
because it was so fucking embarrassing for them.
And it's my pleasure to announce that the Designer of the Year is...
Oh, dear, Vivienne Westwood.
ANNOUNCER: So far, no designer has been awarded
Designer of the Year twice in a row
but Vivienne Westwood celebrated here tonight for her awesome contributions
to the British and international fashion arena.
Long may they last.
The best thing about winning this award
is a personal thing,
the fact that one is appreciated.
REPORTER: It's regarded as something of a disgrace in the fashion industry
that it's taken 20 years for Vivienne Westwood to be given wider recognition
and now that she has, that no financial sponsors had the courage to back her.
PHOTOGRAPHER: Bring it up and perhaps above the head, it's nice and happy.
WESTWOOD: So I don't' know at what point my company was a success.
And I think I would remember when it did become a success,
it's true.
At one point, we closed our Davis Street shop
to give it a coat of paint
and we took a temporary shop in Conduit Street.
But we really started to make a lot of money
because we were on the track where people passed.
We weren't out of the way.
And then sales increased
and we built it up from a real business of actually selling clothes.
REPORTER: Designer and activist, Dame Vivienne Westwood
joined Greenpeace today, south of the North Pole,
aboard the ship Esperanza,
alongside scientists, she'll be observing the impact of climate change
on the Arctic environment.
WESTWOOD: About six or seven years ago, I read in The Guardian
an article by this amazing scientist, James Lovelock.
And he said he thought by the end of this century, the 21st century,
he thought there would be one billion people left.
You know, it just shocked me so much.
It just froze me, I was traumatised.
So I realised that this environmental problem
was of incredible consuming urgency,
the human race facing mass extinction.
And then, of course, the point is what can we do to save ourselves?
Throughout my life, all my motivation has been because
I've been so upset about what can happen
to people in the world and I've always been so lucky.
So everything became the urgent need to save the environment.
WOMAN: So, Vivienne came down today.
We've got this big climate march on the 21st of September.
I know it clashes in with Fashion Week.
She wants banners done.
-The deadline is the 18th. -Mmm-hmm.
And was wondering... [GROANS]
Was wondering if you could kindly let your interns help us.
Need to be done by the 18th.
WOMAN 2: How many do you need?
Around ten really big, beautiful fracking banners.
That's quite a lot.
That's what I mean, I feel really bad.
WESTWOOD: I'm going to put "Democracy" shining over the top like rays of light
because we don't have any democracy in England.
KRONTHALER: We have a different approach
in that she always likes to give it this meaning
and she likes when clothes have this message,
which I...
Think is good or not good. I'm not sure.
I'm a bit, sometimes, bored by it, but then she shouldn't hear that.
I'm not very much bothered about this, you know?
It just needs to look good and I need to like it and I'm happy with it.
DI PIETRO: She cares deeply whether she's going to be able to change the world
to make it a better place.
Fracking!
[CROWD SHOUTING]
We're looking at everything we do and trying to do less.
But the most sustainable thing you could do
is shut the company down, perhaps.
But actually, of course, we are employing a lot of people
and you've got to do it in a more sustainable way.
That's the answer, really.
This is the most amazing thing I've ever thought of or said.
The total rotten financial system is the enemy, it's like the hydra.
Don't start chopping off... I shouldn't mention chopping heads now,
but you've got to kill the machine that is destroying us.
The only way to kill the machine is to change to a green economy
which is a rich economy, a fair economy.
So, if we could get everybody to switch
to a green energy company,
it would be the first step in the green economy.
LOREFICE: Here, there's so many things going on.
Here, there are like meetings, meetings, and meetings,
company meetings, the bags meeting, shoes meetings.
Then Vivienne, she keeps herself super busy with the climate revolution
and all the appointments and the meetings that she has.
NGO, blogs, website,
so maybe the collection can be done in three days.
I don't know,
let's see how.
This is so important to realise,
to have a perspective of what is going on on our planet.
[CROWD CHEERING]
MAN: Thank you, Vivienne Westwood.
KRONTHALER: We have to really hurry up now
because now to cancel it is hara-kiri number five.
We work on it, we don't even look at it.
Not good.
VIVIENNE: Andreas has been having such a hard time.
He's so tired, really, and he's so upset.
Because it's just such a hard work
and he hasn't had much help from me
and that's made a big difference.
You know, we used to do it together
but now I'm depending on him to do it
mostly on his own, really,
and it's too much for him, I know.
It's really terrible. Anyway, so he's getting exhausted.
Everything.
Everything I asked you was not done.
They had no socks on. I don't know why
people don't go downstairs and get some socks from the shop.
I mean, it's just... They're five people.
No, that's true. There was no socks, and they were all...
But they're downstairs.
One flight of stair down and there are some socks.
But they're all mixed. From the gold label, most of them.
What do you mean, "mixed?"
We had no socks. You had ten pairs of socks you tried all the fitting on.
And they were spring-summer.
This, I don't care.
You just need to go downstairs in the shop and get the socks.
I mean, that's just thick.
Useless!
I'll do it myself next time.
For the socks?
For everything.
Anyway, you can go. Do your washing.
Erm...
Okay.
They're all in plastic bags.
Everything in see-through plastic bags.
KRONTHALER: Just do another half-turn, please.
-Okay. -Just like that.
D'AMARIO: Fashion is one of the most tough businesses in the world.
I'm very proud because if you see Vivienne Westwood,
we are, yeah, big family around the world, no?
We are in America, in Europe, in Asia, in India, everywhere.
Hundred and twenty shop.
We give a job for 400 person,
and we're independent.
If you see other people, Stella McCartney, McQueen,
Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier,
everybody belongs to big corporate,
and Vivienne is an independent.
On top of Vivienne there is Vivienne,
nobody tells to Vivienne what she must do.
Of course, this kind of freedom,
you must pay for that.
Independent means you must work three times more.
You just have to think, "I've got a few seconds
"and I'm just going to look great."
And in your head it should be,
"Everybody loves me.
"And today, I'm being grown up
"because I'm wearing rather grown-up clothes."
Okay.
And you can be a bad child if you want, as well. If you want.
[MODELS LAUGHING]
LOREFICE: You see a fashion show and, of course,
you got the make-up, you got the crazy hair.
But, at the same time, we want to try to sell them.
So, the day after, we have... What is that?
The "presentation,"
to all our managers from London, Paris, Milan, L.A., New York,
and our partner, which they come from Japan, Taiwan, China, South Korea,
and who else knows better the collection
than Vivienne and Andreas? Nobody else.
Excuse me, either come or go, please.
Either sit down or fuck off yourselves.
Listen, our shops, erm...
I decided that
I want this company to be one that sells only things that I like
and unfortunately it's expanded so quickly
and I'm awfully suspicious that our expansion
has been based more on quantity rather than quality.
I'm not interested in the money.
Sorry. And I know you are,
but this is what I want.
I want people to buy the best that we've got
and build their customers and not expanding.
Anyway, so, that's not Andreas, is it?
-Andreas? -KRONTHALER: You continue.
-Sorry? -KRONTHALER: You continue.
No, I won't. I was waiting for you.
KRONTHALER: But it's not my job to speak in front of all these people.
Well, I thought it was, that's what we've been waiting for.
Well, whose job is this, then?
-The sales people. -Okay.
I don't know where the sales people are.
Who sells this collection?
Anyway, last season we did it ourselves
and they're probably expecting us to do it again, so there we are.
Anyway, I really love the feeling of poverty about these things,
the neutral colour and it's not in your face,
it's just the woman.
It's just not prepared. It's crazy.
Looks absolutely great.
Sorry, okay, so there in the collection,
there were one or two things we didn't show because they didn't work.
I've just to got to make sure that we take them out
of what's on the rails and in the selling book. Anyway...
ANDRE LEON TALLEY: She is a dress designer and she's an activist.
She's passionate about other issues, other than just putting a dress on.
What I'm very surprised is,
and I think it's the height of elegance, is that on this day
when she is opening a store in Manhattan,
Vivienne has chosen not to fly across the pond
and she's sitting at home working on her thesis
about global warming or capitalism.
She's very concerned about our planet.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
WESTWOOD: I'm having a rave of a time.
I've sorted the whole company out.
I've got everybody doing what I want.
The plan is we've got to work with the designers.
That's what's been wrong.
I can't believe, when I'm looking into it,
there's shops worldwide.
How many pairs of fucking plastic shoes we sell and all that stuff.
I can't believe it.
And, of course, I'm the designer and I've got total control
because I can just say,
"Look, if I don't like the design, then you can't...
"If I don't like my own designs, I can't give them to you,
"I've got artistic control."
I mean, it's very, very simple.
[INDISTINCT CHATTERING]
WESTWOOD: I always wondered what it would look like with a black ceiling.
I always wanted a black ceiling.
Andreas won't do it.
[SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY]
I always like to try it and see if it works.
Hello. Hello, Simone.
-How are you? -I'm all right. Thank you.
I haven't made my mind up about the shop yet. I'm just only...
-You're just taking everything in. -Yeah, yeah.
I've got to make my mind up.
I'm in the process of absorbing it at the moment.
[HISSING]
WESTWOOD: It must stop growing,
but it's very, very difficult to do that.
But we've been trying to open the shop in Paris for the last ten years.
That doesn't mean to say we're expanding, that was in the plan before
and there's no reason to break that.
But then, Carlo, my manager, was planning to open a shop in Beijing
and I've stopped that.
[INDISTINCT CHATTERING]
LOREFICE: She wasn't happy design-wise.
Even to say she hates it.
I hate the music.
LOREFICE: It doesn't feel like Westwood,
but, at the same time, not even Vivienne Westwood or Andreas
knows where they are now.
That shop, it reflect
maybe even the problem we got inside,
because we have a problem. It's like being a family,
where you got the drunk aunty, you got the gay uncle,
you got, you know, the crazy kids,
you have this big family and you can't control them altogether.
But, at least we're still working on it.
WESTWOOD: It's very difficult,
but everything we do has got to be solved in a different way
in order to slowly get to this point
and, I don't know, it's really difficult
to get from here to there. That's all.
But we're slowly doing it.
REPORTER: The fashion world is honoured, with an OBE
going to the flamboyant fashion designer, Vivienne Westwood.
WESTWOOD: People were very impressed by it.
All the people who work with me
are very pleased because they feel that they share in it, really.
CORRE: There were a few things that I thought were milestones, I suppose.
One was when we bought the building for the head office.
That was quite a milestone because it felt like,
"Right, well, we kind of own that now."
I decided I couldn't work with Carlo.
It was, had to be one or the other of us,
and my mother decided that she needed him,
which hurt a bit, but I also felt I was young enough,
and I was kind of at the time where I wanted to go
and do something for myself anyway.
But before I left, the one thing that I made her do
was sign this licence deal with a Japanese company,
'cause I know the minimum royalties on this contract, she'll be okay.
Carlo hadn't wanted her to sign this deal,
and I made her sign the deal, and the lawyers,
in front of Carlo and everyone.
"You've got to sign this."
And after she'd done that,
I felt she was gonna be all right.
WESTWOOD: You're going to take this and show it to Martina at whatever stage,
and get that sorted out and I've got to tell you
which mesh to use.
There won't be any more pleats there
'cause this one is the one that just comes anyway
in the way the fabric's cut, there's no folding there.
Yeah.
-It's very nice. -Yeah.
I think it's going to look great, just going to put it on Kate Moss.
She'll look lovely in it.
Okay, so I'll give that to you.
Uh-huh, thank you.
Do you want to take this corset with you, as well?
And the corset, as well.
All right.
[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]
KATE MOSS: Those shows, they were so outrageous.
You know, champagne was flowing,
and we'd go out naked and lollipops and,
you know, just outrageous,
but really glamorous at the same time.
They were the ones that went "Oh, my God!" It was so exciting.
[AUDIENCE GASPS]
That's now part of my history, which is fun. I've got the shoes.
There was a pair in the museum in London.
I got an insurance commercial out of it.
You know, it's done well for Vivienne and I, both.
[APPLAUDING]
MOSS: She's a rebel, isn't she? So... Which attracts me.
Coming from Croydon, we wanted to get out and she was like our Queen.
CHRISTINA HENDRICKS: Provocative, beautiful, respectful.
It's hard to imagine that one designer could be all of those things.
CARINE ROITFELD: I love her femininity, I love everything she do.
And she's not so young and she still can wear fashion.
And she's never ridiculous.
She's one of the only one, I think.
PAMELA ANDERSON: She's iconic.
And she's at the top of her game, she's so authentic.
And you know she's on this planet for a reason.
To stir it up a little bit.
[CHEERING]
BEN: She's a punk rocker.
She's the only punk rocker.
[CHEERING AND WHISTLING]
WESTWOOD: I can't be bothered.
Who wants to listen to all this stuff?
I mean, the film's only a certain length.
I'm sure there's more interesting things to put into it.
-[SHOUTING INDISTINCTLY] -Space!
[INDISTINCT CHATTERING]
KATE MOSS: I remembered the shows but I can't remember which one,
and we were back stage and she went,
"Kate, you know I've never been into girls
"but I could have got into you."
And then, like, hugged me.
She was like, "I could have been her only lesbian lover."
Ker-ching!
[INDISTINCT CHATTERING]
The position of Vivienne now is a part of the system, no?
Like Lady Diana, like Big Ben,
like, "Mind the gap,"
"good morning," Travel Express, this kind of thing.
[INDISTINCT CHATTERING]
You know, Vivienne is very outspoken person.
Sometimes too outspoken, silly outspoken, you know.
She knows it.
But you need people like this.
These are the people who are changing things.
[INDISTINCT CHATTERING]
[APPLAUDING]
[INDISTINCT CHATTERING]
-WESTWOOD: What's his name? -MAN: Tinie, Tinie Tempah.
-Tinie Tempah. -Yes.
[ALL LAUGHING]
But I'm a quite well-known musician, but...
Yeah, I'm sure, 'cause I just don't follow pop things, you know.
I understand.
-Tinie Tempah, is that... -Tinie Tempah, correct.
I'm very good on lyrics, you know, and sound bites and everything.
-Inspiration. -Yes.
[INDISTINCT CHATTERING]