Vivienne Westwood and the British punk scene

After watching the Vivian Westwood documentary, I felt the urge to research the British punk scene a little more. and Vivianne Westwoods' role in it. In this essay I want to try to define when the punk scene in the UK started and in what way Vivienne Westwood was involved in this rising subculture. In order to do this we'll firstly zoom into the British punk scene in general, secondly we'll talk a little bit a about Vivienne Westwoods' biography.

Defining punk is a pretty hard thing to do, since it is not one thing, at one place at one moment in time. It is a certain movement, some say it's still there, others say punk is dead. This essay will zoom into the punk scene in the 70's in the UK. Known for their mohawks and safety pins, the punkers at the time had a whole lot more to carry out. The punk movement started with anarchist ideology. Mostly amongst adolescents, people started to question society. They started to question if their values and morals in line with the monarchy in the UK? Or in line with capitalism? Or in line with power hierarchies in society? The answer was no. (Punk, Rage and Revolution, 2018)

In 1976 British punk really emerged, according to the Museum of Youth Culture, with the rise of punk music bands like the Sex Pistoles. But it only started to inspire more and more people to dress like punkers after the opening of the shop SEX, by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. Punk started to be a negation of everything, provocative fun and protest. In the UK young people, many from working class backgrounds unhappy with the social and political climate, used punk to express their frustration via a ‘do it yourself’ mindset, most notably through fashion and music. As unemployment and discontent grew, and with the dole queues getting longer, punk enabled young people to channel this new found attitude through music, fashion, literature and art.  (Worley, 2020)

Vivienne Westwood was born in 1941. Born in a small village in Derbyshire, she was not even interested in making fashion. Yet when she moved to London, something in the city's energy sparked her imagination. In the 1970s, together with Malcolm McLaren, she opened a shop that would become the heart of a cultural revolution. It was called SEX. They sold records and garments. Her clothes weren’t just garments — they were statements, challenges, shouts for change. As years passed, Vivienne evolved, but she never lost her edge. She fought for the planet, for justice, and for creativity without compromise. She became very famous but kept on making controversial pieces. Vivienne Westwood didn’t just design clothes; she designed a new way of seeing the world.

The British punk scene would never have been the same without Vivienne Westwood. The ideologies that emerged in the eighties were partly rooted in the shop Malcolm and Vivienne opened. Punk and Westwood are inevitably intertwined, but definitely not the same thing. (Westwood, 2014)

Sources

Punk, Rage and Revolution, Punk scene (2018)

https://rageandrevolution.co.uk/punk-scene/

Westwood, Vivienne, and Ian Kelly. Vivienne Westwood. Pan Macmillan, 2014.

Worley, Matthew, Punk into Post-Punk, Museum of Youth Culture (2020). https://www.museumofyouthculture.com/punk/