However, Vivienne Westwood’s four decades in the world of fashion have followed an evolution that has taken her from aggressive punk to her current interest on sustainability, from Sex Pistols’ concerts to meeting the Queen, from punk to the New Romantics.
VIVIENNE WESTWOOD USES ONE OF HER STAR GARMENTS AGAIN FOR HER COLLABORATION WITH ASICS
Vivienne Westwood’s history is obviously linked to punk, a genre of music, wave and style which she was the main precursor of, along with the store of many names which she shared with Malcolm McLaren.
In 1990, Westwood intended to launch a collection based on the richness of textures seen in classic paintings, a luxurious answer to her previous collections that were based on what was happening in the streets. However, the final result fell short from what Westwood wanted to achieve, the garments needed the paintings themselves. In line with the collection, she chose Daphnis and Chloe, a play written by François Boucher that represented two teenage shepherds with a rococo, theatrical, sentimental and voluptuous style known to the French painter. On the opposite side to punk, Westwood placed the pictorial work in a corset that instantaneously became the star garment from the Portrait collection.
Having moved on from punk as a style but with the same attitude of opposition towards what’s established, in a moment in which minimalism was very much talked about, Westwood approached rococo. A garment that centuries before had been a sign of oppression, was placed on the exterior and was embellished with sensual paintings that in the 18th-century were deemed as disturbing as Westwood’s garments in the birth of punk. That corset is kept at the Victoria and Albert Museum as one of the key elements to understand British design.
Westwood’s relationship with Boucher didn’t end there. In 2009, she let herself be photographed by Juergen Teller on top of a daybed like Marie-Louise O’Murphy in Reclining girl, one of the most representative and scandalous works of art coming from the French artist.
The latest collaboration between Vivienne Westwood with Asics places Boucher’s oil paintings in the centre of the collection for a second time. The Asics HyperGEL-LYTE includes Dafnis and Chloe, the work of art that Westwood already used in her inspiring corset, in its upper, whilst the GELSAGA acts as a contrast with a white leather construction on top of a translucid sole that lets Boucher’s painting be seen. The third one, the GEL-DS Trainer takes the colours of Vivienne Westwood’s characteristic logo combined with black and grey, with Danis and Chloe in the insole.
