Vivienne Westwood Quotes

Vivienne Westwood, The Sex Pistols, Seven Stars, coffee with milk and strawberry cake. And Ren flowers. Nana's favorite things never change. It was so cool for someone like me who keeps on changing their mind.

Buy less, choose well & do it yourself!

The young need discipline and a full bookcase.

Intelligence is composed mostly of imagination, insight, things that have nothing to do with reason.

I’m not terribly interested in beauty. What touches me is someone who understands herself.

A status symbol is a book. A very easy book to read is The Catcher in the Rye. Walk around with that under your arm, kids. That is status.

It is not possible for a man to be elegant without a touch of femininity.

You have to go faster than the system.

Fashion is life-enhancing and I think it's a lovely, generous thing to do for other people

I never look at fashion magazines. I find them incredibly boring. To me, reading a fashion magazine is the last thing I need to do. I've got books I need to read. More people should read books. It's the most concentrated experience you can have. You know, all those incredible geniuses concentrated their lifetimes' experiences in books. It's much better than chattering away to somebody who's never read anything and knows nothing at all.

It's just so impressive to see how the women have used making Fair Trade clothes to escape poverty and empower themselves and their children. - Emma Watson

There is no hierarchy of values any more. Real progress is due mainly to human genius, and that's rare, and usually stems from a real elite, from a hierarchy.

Culture is necessary for human beings to evolve into better creatures.

She watched a red double-decker bus swaying along beside them. Everyone inside looked tired and bored. "How can you be bored? You live in London! You're breathing the same air as the Queen and Vivienne Westwood!

In general: the true artist is always true to his art; the impostor is self-conscious, demonstrating his idea, projecting his theory, his ego, and e.g. the figures of the painter are not borrowed ideas who demonstrate themselves talking, dying, dreaming - they dot it. They are not of themselves and they LIVE! -And the flowers are not showing us how pretty they are, or how weird. They are what they are - Etc.! No invention for the sake of invention! Invention must serve the purpose of art.

Vivienne Westwood and her husband, Andreas Kronthaler, once visited. Vivienne and I met while petitioning for Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier’s release from prison, and she invited me to attend one of her fashion shows in Paris. I spent more time reading the manifesto she left on the chair than admiring the clothes.

Nu este posibil ca un bărbat să fie elegant fără o nuanţă de feminitate.

Buy less, choose well: that's the maxim. Quality not quantity. That's the most environmentally friendly thing you can do.

[On Vivienne Westwood] Vivienne’s scary, for the reason any truthful, plain-talking person is scary – she exposes you. If you haven’t been honest with yourself, this makes you feel extremely uncomfortable, and if you are a con merchant the game is up. She's uncompromising in every way: what she says, what she stands for, what she expects from you and how she dresses. She's direct and judgmental with a strong northern accent that accentuates her sincerity. She has a confidence I haven't seen in any other woman. She’s strong, opinionated and smart. She can’t beat complacency. She’s the most inspiring person I’ve ever met. Sid told me, ‘Vivienne says you’re talented but last.’ I’ve worked at everything twice as hard since he said that.

... the idea that the Art Lover is a freedom fighter for a better world because he thinks, and his exploration of the past gives him a perspective from which to form his own opinions and to act.

In Rochester, New York, I was accused of “sexual deviancy,” so I attended the pretrial hearing in a Vivienne Westwood tartan plaid suit that featured penis-and-balls buttons that blended in so well you would have had to really look hard to see them. No one noticed, and I denied being a “sexual deviant,” but indeed that was exactly what they had on their hands. In this case, I was trying to get a girl out of my hotel room by saying she could only stay if she made it with the other girl I’d let in, who just happened to be younger and better-looking. When she wouldn’t, and why not I don’t know, I told her to leave and ended up throwing her out of the room, which was a mistake. I should have called the road manager. Later I would have a security guard, but back then I was on my own. The girl’s case was thrown out, but the fact is, I should have known better.

You can express yourself with clothes. They talk about the body, and express personality and ideas. Clothes also move in a dynamic way and talk about potential. The convention that comfortable clothes should be loose-fitting is a convention of our time. I feel comfortable when I think I look great, and I couldn't bear to put on shapeless, stamped-out , mass-manufactured clothes. I design clothes in the hope of breaking convention. Comfort is to do also with completing a mental image of what you want to look like - what you are and who you are. 

El abogado llegó cuando el fervor ya se oía desde la calle y bajó del coche con un veinteañero musculoso que vestía falda tableada y arnés. La actriz lo vio llegar y, pensando en la insistencia de sus amigas para que lo sedujera, se le ocurrió que, mientras ella llevaba un vestido de Vivienne Westwood, el maricón llevaba un novio que ni siquiera echaba pelo en el pecho. Un accesorio. Qué pretencioso, el puto, pensó

[..] there was something new going on at the House of Westwood that was not exactly punk and not exactly culture either - though for Vivienne, the climate revolution is both. "It's like Andreas says, if people made real choices and only bought beautiful things, that's Climate Revolution too, because buying less and choosing well wouldn't hurt the environment so much.

We are dangerously short of culture. Because culture is the antidote to propaganda and consumption.

Vivienne [Westwood] and Malcolm [McLaren] use clothes to shock, irritate and provoke a reaction but also to inspire change. Mohair jumpers, knitted on big needles, so loosely that you can see all the way through them, T-shirts slashed and written on by hand, seams and labels on the outside, showing the construction of the piece; these attitudes are reflected in the music we make. It’s ok not to be perfect, to show the workings of your life and your mind in your songs and your clothes. And everything you do in life is meaningful on a political level. That’s why we’re all merciless about each other’s failings and why sloppiness is derided.