“I want you to help me save the world, I can’t do it all on my own,” Dame Vivienne Westwood posthumously tells visitors from a screen as they arrive at Christie’s auction house, where 200 items of clothing, jewellery, and shoes, pulled from the hangers in her wardrobe, are on display ahead of their sale at a concurrent live and online auction in aid of Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières, Greenpeace and The Vivienne Foundation until June 28.
Westwood, who died at her home in Clapham in December 2022, was admired both as one of the most important fashion designers of all time and for her lifelong commitment to eco activism. Christie’s collection is classic Westwood: Anglomania, sharp tailoring, Harris Tweed, slogan t-shirts, 18th century inspired corsets – all synonymous with the fashion house. But it’s the ghost of the designer that stops you in your tracks.
“Climate revolution” badges remain pinned to evening gowns where she placed them. A sewing needle balances in the back of a dress she hadn’t yet finished mending. “Normally this sort of condition would be a problem,” says Adrian Hume Sayer, Christie’s head of sales. “Whereas here, sewing is a tangible link to Vivienne.”
Items at the top end of Christie’s Westwood auction – a full length nude illusion gown embellished with gold sequins from her autumn/winter World Wide Woman collection – are estimated to sell for around £10,000 at live auction on June 25.
But Sayer emphasises “there’ll always be surprises” with which items fetch the largest sum. Particularly when Westwood archival pieces, like a navy blue serge two piece – the oldest ensemble in the auction – from her autumn/winter 1983 Witches collection, will mean “history plays into the sale” for bidders who understand the “chronology of Westwood”.
Of the 200 strong “opposite of a capsule wardrobe” collection Westwood’s husband and creative director, Andreas Kronthaler, has compiled for sale, Christie’s selected 95 items for live auction and exhibition at their St James auction house – organised in predominantly chronological order of the “final four decades of Westwood’s life” across four expansive rooms.
Aside from a small handful of runway models and Tracey Emin for a recent Vogue shoot, nobody has worn these items apart from Westwood. “That’s just like your sister borrowing your jacket,” says Sayer.
“These clothes have never been displayed together before and they will never be displayed together again.”
Kronthaler pulled deeply personal items (tights, even cigarette boxes) from his late wife’s wardrobe after the 81 year old made clear her dying wish was for her belongings to make money that could change the world.
In an era characterised by newness – fast fashion trends and next day delivery orders – Westwood practised the eco-consciousness she preached: one ice blue jagged hem “Cinderella dress” on display from her spring/summer 2011 Gaia the Only One collection was dubbed so by her family because she wore it till it “literally fell apart”, mended it again, and wore it “forever and ever”.
Elsewhere, Westwood’s shoes – towering black leather and red squiggle patterned stiletto boots – have scuffs along the sides, despite her regular practise of pulling them off and placing each pair in her bicycle’s basket as she peddled to Covent Garden barefoot and yanked them back on again in front of tourists in the central London piazza, her husband recalls.
One brown corduroy two piece trouser suit from her autumn/winter 2004/05 collection, he adds, was nicknamed the “drunken tailors suit” thanks to its wonky cutting technique and worn by Westwood “more than anything in her absolute life”.
The clothes from the designer’s wardrobe aren’t simply part of fashion week or runway history but part of history full stop thanks to where they went on Westwood’s back. A yellow woven silk “Spitalfields” dress from the 1996 Les Femmes collection was paired with an orange sheepskin bolero from Westwood’s Erotic Zones range when the designer attended Tony Blair’s triumphant entry to power party at Downing Street after he beat John Major in the 1997 election.
“I was one of the last to leave,” Westwood later told The Independent in 2005 of the lengthy celebration, adding she’d “never” vote for Blair again “because of the Iraq war”.
Westwood was a disruptor and her wardrobe choices continued to be anarchic even in the presence of royalty. The designer famously “never” wore underwear with dresses and, when given her OBE by the Queen at Buckingham Palace in 1992, she accidentally flashed photographers while twirling around in a grey skirt suit outside.
Triumphant, Westwood returned to receive her damehood in 2006 wearing a caped black polka dot draped gown from her Active Resistance to Propaganda collection – still commando – which is estimated to sell for £5,000.
Kronthaler, who labels his wife a “genius”, says Westwood spent many days of her life “in bed reading about the state of the world”, such was her commitment to revolution.
“The last time I saw her in hospital she was still talking passionately about what needed to change in the world,” John Sauven, former executive director of Greenpeace, concurs. “She didn’t care who she upset, she just spoke truth to power.”
In 2017, Westwood created a pack of rallying playing cards. “Diamonds are for money, clubs are for war, spades are for motherfuckers (earth wreckers),’ she explained. Until the end of her life, she continued working on the deck and selected ten of the most powerful prints to be enlarged, hand-signed by her, printed posthumously and sold for proceeds donated to Greenpeace.
Titled THE BIG PICTURE – Vivienne’s Playing Cards: Collect the cards. Connect the cards Christie’s estimates the work will sell for somewhere between £30,000 and £50,000.
Throughout her life, Westwood supported hundreds of causes, NGOs, grassroots charities and campaigns like Amnesty International and War Child. She launched her own movement Climate Revolution and was an ambassador for Greenpeace up until her death, designing their official Save the Arctic campaign logo. In 2015, she launched a crusade to stop drilling and industrial fishing in the area.
When asked where the designer’s unrelenting energy for activism stemmed from, Sayer replies: “She had a real moral compass; it was as simple as that. She took inspiration from everywhere and she never followed the rules.”
Westwood’s appeal has lasted over five decades since she started designing alongside Malcolm McLaren at their Let It Rock boutique on the King’s Road in 1971.
Her instantly recognisable orb pendants are still one of the most sought after jewellery items by British Gen Zs today. Modern labels like Annie’s Ibiza and Reformation continue to be inspired by her corset designs.
“My clothes have a story,” a Westwood quote printed on a wall at Christie’s reads. “They have an identity. They have a character and a purpose. That’s why they have become classics. Because they keep on telling a story. They are still telling it.”
Vivienne Westwood: The Personal Collection live sale is taking place at Christie’s on 25 June, with an online auction taking place and accompanying exhibition on show from 14-28 June.
