Vivienne Westwood, provocative British fashion designer, dies at 81 - The Washington Post

Her decease was announced by her namesake manner house, which did not mention a cause.

Ms. Westwood grew from an enfant unspeakable into a expansive dame of the manner world, bursting onto the London country successful the 1970s erstwhile she helped formal punk rockers similar the Sex Pistols with leather jackets, ripped shirts and information pins. She aboriginal moved into couture design, creating outfits that were exhibited successful museums astir the world, portion experimenting with flamboyant pirate shirts and petticoats, tweed corsets and pinstripe tailoring.

Throughout her vocation she linked manner to politics, leveraging her fame to beforehand biology causes, atomic disarmament, vegetarianism and efforts to combat clime change. She emblazoned her shirts, jackets and dresses with activistic slogans — “Politicians R Criminals” and “We are not disposable” — and urged her assemblage to bargain less, not more, unveiling a unisex enactment successful 2017 with the hopes that men and women could stock the aforesaid clothes, including capes and tutus.

“Unisex whitethorn dependable similar a joke, but, successful fact, it’s each astir styling and being capable to formal nevertheless you like,” she told the New York Times that twelvemonth astatine a London Fashion Week event. “Swapping apparel with your spouse means you tin bargain less, take good and truly marque them last.”

Ms. Westwood was initially known for presiding implicit a boutique connected London’s King’s Road with Malcolm McLaren, who became the manager of the Sex Pistols. “I was messianic astir punk,” she aboriginal recalled, “seeing if 1 could enactment a spoke successful the strategy successful immoderate way.”

She maintained that anarchic sensibility agelong aft she was embraced by the establishment, posing for the screen of Tatler mag successful 1989 successful an Aquascutum suit that she said was intended for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Three years later, erstwhile Queen Elizabeth II awarded her the Order of the British Empire, Ms. Westwood — who was aboriginal named a Dame Commander — shocked photographers by twirling to amusement disconnected her outfit, a tailored skirt suit that she wore with sheer tights but nary underwear.

“I person an in-built perversity,” she said successful an interrogation for the publication “England’s Dreaming” by Jon Savage, “a benignant of in-built timepiece which reacts against thing orthodox.”

Vivienne Isabel Swire was calved successful Glossop, an English municipality eastbound of Manchester, connected April 8, 1941. Her mother, a seamstress who made her ain clothes, favored modular fare for her 3 children; Ms. Westwood said that she began to dabble successful manner erstwhile her parent allowed her to prime retired her ain clothes. She selected a choky skirt and heels.

Ms. Westwood concisely attended Harrow Art School and past went to a teacher’s grooming college, landing a occupation arsenic a schoolteacher. Her matrimony to Derek Westwood, a creation hallway manager, ended successful divorce, and successful the mid-1960s she began a narration with McLaren, with whom she collaborated arsenic a designer.

Together they riffed connected the slim-tie, gelled-hair manner benignant of the 1950s “teddy boys,” portion besides drafting connected biker civilization and sadomasochistic imagery. Under the slogan “Clothes for Heroes,” they designed leather-and-zipper dresses and “bondage” shirts with sleeves that wrapped astir similar a straitjacket. One T-shirt showed Queen Elizabeth II with a information pin piercing her lip.

Their store cycled done respective names, including Too Young to Die and Too Fast to Live, but the 1 that astir caught the public’s attraction was Sex. The sanction appeared successful bloated pinkish letters supra the door.

In 1981, they launched their archetypal runway collection: gender-neutral apparel that evoked pirate imagery and 19th-century fashion. The benignant became portion of the post-punk New Wave country aft it was adopted by popular stars Adam Ant and Boy George.

Ms. Westwood soon dissolved her concern with McLaren, and went connected to make designs including the mini-crini, a shortened mentation of the Victorian crinoline, and a lightweight corset designed to beryllium worn connected the extracurricular of an outfit, which helped spark a ’90s inclination toward underwear arsenic outerwear. In caller decades, she utilized her sanction for an expanding array of retail partnerships, including teas sets, hats, jewelry and fragrances.

She opened her archetypal U.S. boutique successful Los Angeles successful 2011.

Survivors see her hubby of 30 years, Austrian decorator Andreas Kronthaler; a lad from her archetypal marriage, erotic lensman Ben Westwood; and a lad with McLaren, Joseph Corré, who co-founded the lingerie marque Agent Provocateur. Additional details connected survivors were not instantly available.

In 2008, a Westwood wedding formal became a centerpiece of the “Sex and the City” movie erstwhile Sarah Jessica Parker’s character, Carrie Bradshaw, decides against a Vera Wang formal successful favour of Ms. Westwood’s billowy silk-and-taffeta. Ms. Westwood was unimpressed with the remainder of the apparel featured successful the film, aboriginal saying: “I went to the premiere and near aft 10 minutes.”

When it came to her ain image, she often opted for comparatively uncomplicated outfits to spell with her distinctive bright-orange hair. “My manner advice,” she told the Times successful 2009, “is to person a flattering reflector astatine location and past hide astir it.”