Last show of London Fashion Week Men’s, and, before we get down to the business in hand – we must reiterate the following statement: how effing fab is Vivienne Westwood? Not content with doing a runway turn at the Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood show last season in Paris, this time she took her bow straddled atop a man’s shoulders. It was a move that wasn’t wholly off topic because this, her own label SS18 show had a whole circus kind of thing about it – complete with very bendy women, voguers and a last with a large hoop that got dangerously close to knocking out one of the FROWers (not such a bad thing, probably) and there was a hefty amount of clown face paint.
Obviously with Viv this was about the political – using symbols to outline her positions in life – a heart for love, a diamond for greed, a penis for war and lastly, a triangle for“giants like Shell who rape the earth.” They appeared scrawled across the collection, alongside the statement: “don’t buy anything.” Was it a comment on the circus of fashion? Or perhaps just rampant capitalism? Probably both, but there’s much to appreciate about the actual physical clothes – she’s still so good at tailoring, here slightly pitched on the shoulder and nipped in at the waist, so too the woven knitwear, extra-long on the sleeves, pinstripes, boys in dresses, tartan, mini skirts that rode up the boy’s stomachs, hot pants. Hers is a look that have returned of late, but here it’s worth noting that Dame Vivienne Westwood was the first.
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans
