Dame Viv has always been one to do things her way. It’s why, in lieu of a show today, she dropped her Autumn 2018 collection digitally, pinging this film into our inboxes just moments ago. Which, to be honest, suits us – anything that allows us to remain sitting down is plus. Not that this collection encourages any of that – in fact, the opposite, Vivienne Westwood long imploring her fans to stand up and be counted. So this collection, revealed in a (friend-of-10) Maria Ziegelboek-shot lookbook, and accompanying film, is entitled: Don’t Get Killed. Seems logical – but what does it all mean? Well, avid social media followers of our Viv will know she’s been releasing her own “playing cards” – collecting together old Westwood graphics and pamphlets to create a full deck of cards. See those cards as a way to world peace – spanning climate change to war, they are Viv’s instructions on how we can all do a bit better.
This collection was about the latter: war. She’s got to clubs, and that’s what those cards represent – the collection swirling around the phrase “sow the whirlwind, Reap the whirlwind,” from a “shield of terror” she designed for Warchild. So there are camouflage green meltons, bright red ones too, like old army uniforms, all mixed up with vivid camo in pink – based on Mountbatten pink, designed during World War II and capturing the move from mauve to grey at dusk. There is an old navy jacket, copied entirely from her legendary pirate collection (those pieces are still iconic, and we still want to wear them) whilst a Westwood favourite, the Princess coat, buttoning on the masculine side to make it unisex (“economical” says Vivienne) and made from Harris Tweed, the fabric long synonymous with her work.
It’s all finished off with typically brilliant Westwood-cut shirting – they could “come from peasant revolutions from the four corners of the world,” according to the woman herself, as well as “body-conscious” trousers and jeans. Something for everyone, basically. To sort of quote the woman in the video – if I was in an army it would be Vivienne’s!
