Vivienne’s Diary: September

My son Ben writes the World’s End shop website and he was explaining the origins of a man’s suit- one of our favourite classics which we have just re-introduced. It is from a portrait of a man, Krall by Otto Dix and he found out more about the work of Dix and talked to Andreas. Then Andreas came to me, he was really excited and he made me excited because he said, “I think Ben’s got art!” If this happens to you it’s a gift out of the blue – you enter the parallel universe (where everything is perfectly expressed). Andreas has got art, he gets it immediately – I tell this because I want you to know it can happen and I’m sure Andreas is right about Ben. I talked to Ben, he said, “I’m very alive to the subject matter.” I don’t know if I get art. I know I love paintings; I stand in front of them for ages and I don’t want to leave. I think you’d call it worship – or meditation, I marvel and I’m completely grateful they exist.

They have found a new Titian. Andreas showed it to me on his computer. It’s been 120 years since the last discovery and this one has been in a private family. Titian painted it when he was young, around 25. It’s a Resurrection.  Andreas said, “It’s obvious, of course it’s competitive, he is showing off his power. It’s very important. An interesting face – someone he knew. Intellectual. The loincloth (shroud) is the greatest ever painted, its swathes include every possibility but it doesn’t exist in real life.”

I don’t know how big the painting is. It could be life-size or more. Jesus fills all the space; he fills the world, the clouds are the horizon, the sunrise is low down level with Jesus’ legs. The composition gives confidence, in Jesus and in the world – a feeling of security. “Christ” means the “ anointed one” Christ has saved us for everlasting life by dying for us on the cross. We can share in his divinity “I am the way, the truth and the life.” This is what I read in his expression. I’ve done it I have fulfilled my destiny. Contemplation of this all-embracing icon gives peace and confidence.

Titian’s talent is in the originality of the composition – how he illustrates what he wants to say.  At this stage of his life it’s the device of a bold young painter. His skill is such that he can paint what he wants. Of the hundreds of paintings he did throughout his long life every composition is original.

Though I have no religious belief I can share in the power of this painting, put myself in Titian’s shoes, go back in time and understand the solidity and confidence that this religious view gave to the view of the world. Jesus’ face is full of health in the prime of life.

Sunday, 15 September – Red Label Show:  We kept postponing our decision as to how to present “Red Label” our very important second line. Were we going to do a catwalk show or – our marketing people explored the idea of a film combined with a presentation? Time ran out and Andreas rang up Lily Cole and asked her, Lily, you’re an activist for the environment, can you think of a way to use a presentation of Red label?

Lily was interested to know that we wished to focus attention on Environmental Justice Foundation’s campaign (EJF) to help Climate refugees. She, herself is already a passionate supporter of this. EJF are distributing postcards for people to send to Ban Ki Moon to get the U.N. to give official recognition to this human crisis. There are more than 30 million climate refugees compared to 10 million war refugees. We could put these postcards on seats and help distribute them in other ways.

Lily talked to her friend from school days, Lorna Tucker who makes films. Lorna is also my friend and at the moment is making a film on Leonard Peltier. They came up with an idea. Lily (I didn’t know this) is a dancer. She would dance Hans Christian Anderson’s story of “The Red Shoes”. The girl cannot stop dancing unless she can rid herself of the shoes. This would be a metaphor for climate refugees who must escape their hostile environment.

‘She danced, and was obliged to go on dancing through the dark night. The shoes bore her away over thorns and stumps till she was all torn and bleeding; she danced away over the heath to a lonely little house. Here, she knew, lived the executioner; and she tapped with her finger at the window and said:
Come out, come out! I cannot come in, for I must dance.’
The Red Shoes, Hans Christian Anderson.

The dance of death must end. Trapped in its hostile environment an animal will die. It will try to leave. It will leave but there is nowhere to go.
Lorna made a ten minute film of Lily’s dance which we will send to Ban ki Moon; and for the Red Label presentation. Lily danced live for three minutes and then the fashion show took place. We somehow wanted the models to look like animals who die due to degraded environments. Andreas gave the brief to make up and hair, Val Garland and Mark Hampton: Imagine an animal caught in headlights.

The postcards ask us to write about home.
I wrote:
Anyone who gets home late from work and finds she’s forgotten the key. What a disaster!
My home is my refuge. 

Lily wrote:
Planet earth is our home. Yet climate change now makes someone homeless every second.

You can pick up a postcard at any of Vivienne Westwood’s UK shops or send one free online or via the ByPost app. Visit www.ejfoundation.org/postcards for more information.

Monday, 16 September: We have a library at work: a selection of 8 books with 6 copies of each, enough so that some of us can get together and discuss them, also 6 books of a single copy. If the library takes off then I would bring one or two of my precious art books and buy multiple copies of one or two plays so that people could do readings together.

The book of the month is Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” and we decided to launch the library with a showing of the film, starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford.

We did this in The Doodle Bar across the road from our studio in Battersea. It was really nice. Prior to going over Tizer had organized people to each bring a dish of food and then there were free drinks at the bar. I was disappointed that mostly the same people came – the ones who get involved, come on demonstrations. The others? I know people need to get home after a long day but is it really a question of habit; they knew of the event for quite some time in advance and could say, yes, I’ll go and if that means I have to make arrangements at home, I’ll do it. It’s so important to engage with the world.

It’s a great film. Henry Fonda wanted that role so badly, he is a hero and all the casting is shrewd, and the sets – the way it looks is graphic and timeless. It succeeds in condensing Steinbeck’s message and it ends at a good point for a film – on a note of optimism.
The advantage of the book is (of course) more words, words that flow and ideas that build. The book has more flexibility over time to connect all the links in the unbroken chain of robbery that defines monopoly. More time to introduce us to the aspirations of all the individual characters who belong to this rich story of human kinship.

The book continues beyond the point where the film stops and though the chances of survival for the family are precarious the pathos of the final scene is unsurpassed in literature.

Wednesday, 25 September: Until now I’ve been working quite a bit on next season’s Red Label as well as preparing stuff for the Climate Revolution site for when the site structure is ready. And of course Gold Label. The last week has been lovely seeing all the designs become reality, receiving the last of the embroideries, the hats, the jewellery. I was trying to put the show together – draw it out on paper, outfits, what goes with what – tops and bottoms. It seemed quite difficult and somehow we will have to do it in Paris with all the actual clothes when they arrive. This will make us rather later than usual. It’s always a good thing to have a provisional run to work from.

Johannes who works on Worlds’s End (an ex-student of mine from when I taught in Berlin) takes it upon himself to cook because we all work late. Here is one of his recipes (vegetarian).

For 8-10 approx. people:
2 small Hokkaido squash/pumpkins
1 onion
1 leeks
5 sticks celery
2 carrots
1 big piece of ginger
2 cubes vegetable soup stock (yeast free)
1 chilly (red)
1 lemon grass
1 can of coconut cream
½ bottle of white wine
Juice from 1 lime
Fresh coriander as topping

Cut all the vegetables into small pieces.
You can use the Hokkaido Squash with its peel, which makes it a lot quicker to prepare than butternut squash.
Put everything into a big pot, fill up with water and bring to boil, use less water if you want a thicker soup. Add salt and soup stock and cook for 10min.
Now add the spices (cut very small) and the wine and cook for another 5min.
Take it off the heat add the coconut cream and mix it with a hand blender until its smooth and creamy.
Add lime juice and coriander.

Andreas always buys flowers for the studio. He is so excited, he said, “The feeling I have, I can only compare it to the Harvest.”
I left together with Andreas for Paris. Our Gold Label show is on Saturday.

We did not have a title for the show even more than this I need to tell a story of the collection – for a press release and for when I do my interviews. So before the show whilst in Paris I just wrote everything down hoping the title would grow out of the process and it did. This is far too long and complicated for a press release but I was able to pick out a few paragraphs. Here is the full version. 

Gold Label Spring- Summer 2014
Everything is connected. In search of a title
Now that our world is at the chaos point I want to know more about the world order of the medieval community. My interest in these people deepens. A couple of years ago I went with Andreas to Canterbury. There was a service in the cathedral and we weren’t allowed in to the splendor of the nave and altar. I’m so glad because instead we gained another experience; we explored the cloisters and vaults within the environs of the building and I felt all along that I was wandering in the presence of ordinary people who lived in a different world to mine and I thought of the specialists- the alchemists of those days who aspired to become more spirit than flesh because they believed in a divine order of things.

I now thought of Pilgrims and it became a working title for this collection. How did they dress? They would try to balance the need for humility and austerity with a display of their importance in this world. In those ordered earlier worlds you dressed accordingly to your status. I thought of the pagan Greek, a young male pilgrim walking to the shrine of Apollo in his noble nakedness, his cloak, hat and staff. You would have to come from the noble class to dress like that. We used this image in our invitation.

Our medieval pilgrims on their journey must be austere, serious and festive each wearing her most important clothes.

Their colours begin with un-dyed cloths,(perhaps this mark of piety implies wealth – poorer people would try to show off more) and colours and tints of vegetable dyes. There is always a way to show wealth, for example scholars and clerks dressed in “austere” black but in those days the process of achieving a black dye cost a fortune.

Amongst the travelers would be important people from the countryside wearing their most festive traditional dress. I love the way that folk costume carries its wealth: an apron can be the most costly item, an example of the finest most perfect or elaborate spinning and weaving, a belt could have taken a skilled member of a village a year of his spare time, scarves and cloaks and jewellery can be pinned flat transposing the refinement of their decoration into an overall panache.

Frida Kahlo began to inspire our collection. We visited the Royal Academy’s current exhibition on the Mexican revolution which happened at the same time as World War I. Frida was one of the artists who grouped together to celebrate through their work the new power of the people. She wore the Mexican folk costume. You may think anyone could look like her by doing that but they couldn’t. She had the keenest sense of style- the way each day she just fixed her hair, sometimes adding ribbons or flowers. You would think that Sam McKnight had just flown in to do it. She made the look so spontaneous, so her, so chic and she wore it all her life. A great fashion icon and a great artist.

Pilgrims is not a big enough idea for a whole collection, as a title it is too limited. Now that it’s finished it’s sexy, even kinky- you could style it like a sexy nun. To Andreas it looks Arab with clothes from a strange charity shop thrown in; Arab that is of the middle east, as we British refer to it, and of north Africa; Arab as we imagine it before the global war machine largely smashed this culture.
I would like to connect the idea of the collection and the show to Climate Revolution, my main preoccupation.

To review: the ethos of the medieval world is the complete opposite of ours. Its structure is a hierarchy of different classes and functions, striving for harmony through reciprocal duties and help. However the hierarchy is unjust and ruled by dogma.
It is swept away by scepticism which arrived with the Renaissance. The Renaissance is the re-discovery of the pagan Greek mind.
The modern world embraced scepticism- diverse opinion, scientific enquiry, knowledge based on experience but it came to ignore the Greek concerns of harmony, form, proportion and balance; of giving back what you take out, of not going too far, of over-weaning pride: nature will always be our master. We are men not gods.

Shakespeare saw the disaster we were heading for. In the quotation below its useful to know that glass means mirror, the picture it gives us is of man holding up his own image to challenge God.
I am going to call the show “Everything is connected” because that is the main message of the Climate Revolution and it means that everything each one of us thinks or says or does can make a difference.

Shakespeare understood where we were heading:

But man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority-
Most ignorant of what he is most assur’d.
His glassy essence- like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep.

Andreas added this P.S. to the press release

Dear Clothes lover,
This season I would like to draw your attention especially to the knitwear. I am very fond of it and if I were a girl, for sure it would be my absolute must have. Its fine netty yarns and burnt colours are perfect to show off my sun-kissed “super body!” It’s just like being naked and is going to be a great friend on my next holiday. Most pieces are enhanced with recycled mirrored sunglass lenses cut into special shapes and motifs. Again, I can so very much imagine the sun reflecting on them and causing quite a stir at the beach bar. You can put those knits into little bundles and take loads of them with you without paying excess luggage.

I love Vivienne’s sense for yarns and what she does with it. Thanks darling;
Your Andreas x

P.P.S. I’ve added this just now at the time of writing up the diary: Our modern world runs on the theory of free trade which at one time seemed like a good idea – an abstract mechanism adjusting itself through the play of economic motives to the supply of economic needs. Man’s selfishness was justified as the key to it’s success:every man for himself. The trouble was some men are more selfish than others and two things happened – monopolies and progress measured by consumption.

Saturday, 28 September: 6. It was a beautiful show. The venue is a bank during the week, Le Centorial. It is all wrought-iron and glass. The models came up and down escalators to an arena on the top floor and we had large mirrors reflecting their progress. This gave more feeling of space and travelling. Sam McKnight and Val Garland – to have them again for hair and make-up. They are the best. Dominique Emrich composed the music specially. Very beautiful, we really appreciate him. And the models –every one gorgeous,beautiful black girls having fun, strong characters, strong image.

Pamela came to the show and in the evening we met for dinner. She is travelling with her friend and ex-husband, Rick. He travels in the course of earning his living. He’s a professional gambler and they are living a life of high adventure, both surf as well. We really liked him, we’re all vegetarian and like Pamela Rick cares about the environment and supports various activists. Wherever they travel, next stop is Biarritz, Pamela runs – 15 miles a day but not every day. She is training for the New York marathon, raising money for Haiti. Pamela is always concerned about.

Sunday 29, September: At 10.30am I was in our Paris showroom to present the collection to the buyers – I gave a talk about the clothes. They are really easy to combine and to buy – easy to understand.

Andreas and I then met our friend Lawrence for lunch. He works for the Gates Foundation and has high level contacts. His work is all about empowering women in poor countries – involves mobile phones and facilities for saving which didn’t exist for them before. I will tell you about it fully when he e-mails me. He is impressed by our slogan, “Buy less, choose well, make it last”, thinks it could have a big effect on changing peoples aspirations and could be a most important tool in Climate Revolution. He really gets into you, caring and spiritual.

Monday – home.