LFW – Vivienne Westwood S/S2020: No Man’s Land

You just have to love Vivienne Westwood.  Not in a Trumpian, government mandated sort of way, of course.  Just in the way that you cannot help but love her, her uncompromising attitude on what’s important to her and the near relentless creativity she outputs with her creative design partner, Kronthaler.  We love her because, no matter what, Dame Viv will always be Punk, in outlook and style.

With the new collection, called No Man’s Land, there’s no compromise.  Westwood has long been at the vanguard of the climate action movement that’s currently sweeping the world.  There aren’t many designers who would advocate for selling fewer clothes as a business model.  But it’s the Punk at the heart of the business that makes something so seemingly counter-intuitive work so very well.  The radical premise behind the new collection is: land should be a human right that no-one should own – i.e. it should belong to no one man (or woman).

Always one to put her money where her mouth is, the new collection will be produced with as little waste and impact to the environment as possible.  In some cases there will be a net zero in waste.  However, the right intentions mean nothing if it doesn’t sell clothes and this is where Westwood and Kronthaler excel.  The graphic prints stand out as only Westwood designs can.  Bold colours in a maelstrom of combinations and in-your-face messages like ‘we are not disposable’ tell you this is not a collection for people who want to blend into the background and keep their heads down as the seas rise.  As always, the exquisite tailoring comes with the familiar quirks that make it unique and instantly recognisable – whether its the shout-out-loud colours, the unapologetic checks or the elongated silhouettes.  One thing’s for sure, anti-consumerism has never looked this fashionable.

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Hear Dame Viv explain the concept of Rot$ by visiting THE FALLtv.

Read our last feature on Vivienne Westwood here.