British fashion legend Dame Vivienne Westwood dies aged 81 | Ents & Arts News

Famous British manner designer Dame Vivienne Westwood has died aged 81.

A assertion mentioned she died on Thursday in London, surrounded by her family.

Dame Vivienne observed fame in the 1970s when she introduced punk fashions into the mainstream, running a boutique on London’s King’s Highway along with Sex Pistols supervisor Malcolm McLaren.

She went on to create a world-wide manner brand which nowadays has retailers in the British isles, France, Italy, America and Asia.

“Vivienne Westwood died right now, peacefully and surrounded by her relatives, in Clapham, South London. The earth wants people like Vivienne to make a modify for the greater,” her vogue property tweeted.

Her partner and imaginative lover Andreas Kronthaler claimed: “I will go on with Vivienne in my heart.

“We have been functioning until the conclusion and she has specified me a great deal of issues to get on with. Thank you darling.”

The Derbyshire-born designer was also properly identified for her campaigning – standing up for issues these kinds of as air pollution and local climate adjust, as very well as supporting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

She at the time dressed up as Margaret Thatcher for a journal protect and drove a white tank in close proximity to the property of former key minister David Cameron to protest versus fracking.

Dame Vivienne also showed her rebellious mother nature when obtaining an OBE from the Queen in 1992.

She turned up with out underwear – a point she unveiled with a twirl of her skirt for photographers.

“The only purpose I am in fashion is to ruin the term ‘conformity’,” she mentioned in her biography.

“Almost nothing is interesting to me except it is really bought that component.”

The designer was recognisable to lots of for her dyed orange hair – a nod to the punk aesthetic she aided popularise.

“There was no punk before me and Malcolm,” she claimed in her biography. “And the other thing you really should know about punk way too: it was a complete blast.”

She routinely appeared on the catwalk to showcase her function, with supermodel Naomi Campbell famously slipping in a pair of huge Westwood platforms in 1993.

Her vocation took form in the 1960s following her household experienced moved from in close proximity to Glossop to north London.

She analyzed jewellery-producing and silversmithing right before turning into a primary college instructor.

Right after divorcing her first partner in 1966, with whom she had a son, she started providing jewellery on London’s Portobello Highway.

It was there she fulfilled upcoming punk godfather McLaren an come upon than would spawn their influential innovative marriage as perfectly as her second son, Joe, co-founder of lingerie manufacturer Agent Provocateur.

“My garments have a tale. They have an identity. They have character and a objective,” the designer once stated.

“That’s why they come to be classics. Mainly because they preserve on telling a story. They are nevertheless telling it.”

Dame Vivienne married for a second time in 1993 immediately after assembly Andreas Kronthaler when instructing in Vienna. He later on became her creative partner.

Victoria Beckham, who also has a style company, was between the 1st to pay back tribute on social media.

She wrote: “I am so unhappy to study of the passing of famous designer and activist Dame Vivienne Westwood. My ideas are with her household at this unbelievably unfortunate time VB.”

US designer Marc Jacobs mentioned he was “heartbroken”.

“You did it very first. Often. Outstanding design and style with excellent and significant material,” he wrote on Instagram.

Singer Boy George tweeted that Dame Vivienne was “good and inspiring” and called her “the undisputed Queen of British manner”.

The Victoria and Albert Museum called her a “real innovative and rebellious power in style”.

Tradition Secretary Michelle Donelan tweeted that the designer was “a towering determine in British fashion” who “rewrote the rule book in the 1970s”.