HISTORICAL fashion references were brought to our attention yesterday when Raf Simons went back in time and rewrote the codes of clothes, but someone who always plunders beyond the contemporary decades when it comes to their collections is Vivienne Westwood.
Bodices, bustles and costume drama are her thing but she knows how to temper it down as well as dress it up – the latter of course ideal catwalk fodder, which today wandered the gamut of her Little Bo Peep, Snow White and fairy tale characters.
But fashion has always simultaneously been a political mouthpiece for Westwood too – her clothes here a collage of those history heroes and campaign poster prints and images. Add to that upturned basket hats, defiant capes and khaki shirting and we had ourselves quite the medley of merry folk.
Westwood also uses the time to update us, newsletter style, on what she’s personally and actively up to on the campaign trail – rather like how people do at Christmas, which always makes for a nice touch. Her latest news? Playing the role of Eve (of Adam and) for a short film to support End Ecocide, a sustainable and healthy vision of the future.
This, then, was her Garden of Eden.