shopping247
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fun collection! am loving the coats below:
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aww she is lovelycygnenoir said:How adorable is that little girl?![]()
- fwdVivienne Westwood: Political, Punk and Preachy
By Erin Skrypek
February 28, 2006 @ 3:23 PM - Paris
"I AM EXPENSIVE" were the words printed on a '70s punk t-shirt layered under what looked like tattered shreds of clothes – a piece of cardigan that was flung over the shoulders and buttoned on the side of the neck, a bunched up short skirt with white lace and pink printed stockings and a miscellaneous piece of black fur tossed over the arms in a vest-like fashion.
Yes, Vivienne Westwood is expensive and she is punk, but the base of her Autumn/Winter 2006/2007 collection was fundamentally neither. It was about "Innocence" - the innocence of Leonard Peltier, to be exact.
Peltier is a Native American man who was convicted of shooting and killing two FBI agents, has served 30 years of two consecutive life sentences and is presumed to be innocent by Westwood and hundreds of other political fashion people (and people with political views in general). Westwood’s team even provided a roster of "international VIPs"who signed the "Leonard Peltier Is Innocent petition." A list that included everyone from Coolio to Mikhail Gorbachev, Azzedine Alaia to Marc Jacobs, Madonna to Marc Quinn and so on.
However choosing to personify Peltier with her collection was, as Westwood with her bright orange hair and powdered face explained backstage, "arbitrary in a way…it could have been anybody, honestly. Victims are like children – when somebody is innocent and then convicted on fabrications made by the police. There is just so much injustice."
The rebellious collection, one that started out with bright colors faded to black and then literally exploded in psychedelic, glittering gold color again near the end, was a long one, but moved with such an energetic pace – thanks to a soundtrack that began with classical music, moved for a few seconds to some ’80 electron, turned to glam rock (featuring some really loud Suzi Quatro in all her 1970s tight-pants glory), dropped a few bars of Stevie Wonder and then went back again to some more 70s glam – that no one seemed to mind.
Even though there were plenty of references from the 1970s in Westwood’s collection - and it was indeed the decade when Leonard Peltier’s case began to make a ruckus - Ms. Westwood said that her true inspiration was "Greek… you saw it in the crown of gold leaves," and perhaps in a draped dress or two and maybe, if you really pushed it, even in the thickly laced fur leggings that reached thigh height. But other than those few things, her collection was politically-charged and opulent in that signature, elegant/punk, Vivienne Westwood way.
Words relaying Peltier’s "injust" situation were scribbled across tights, tops and other random tiers that served as skirts. Westwood even sent a beautiful onyx-skinned girl down the runway with a brightly knit sack over her head evoking a lynching. Apparently an alleged accomplice in the Peltier "shootings" was interviewed on camera with a bag over his head years ago.
Aside from her direct allusions, Westwood’s trademark opulence was still easily found in her billowing volumes that composed her famous suits in their over-exaggerated ‘40’s proportions, as well as in her enormous gowns with corseted bodices that were reminiscent of deep purple extravaganza Ms. Westwood created for Dita Von Teese’s wedding day.
Punk played into the collection on several levels. The "Greek" leggings that laced up many of the model’s legs could just as easily be read as bondage straps - something Westwood has used a lot in the past. There was even a hallmark motorcycle visor, though in glittery glam gold, pulled low over one model’s darkly rimmed eyes.
Though less overtly punk and not as seductively S and M as usual, the major vein that has been sustaining Westwood’s collections from the beginning is still pumping the same blood to the heart of this collection more than 30 years later.
Modern, historic and distinctly provocative, Westwood still puts on a good show.