Susannah Frankel
The fashion world is buzzing with rumours that Vivienne Westwood — Queen of Punk, grande dame of British fashion and the woman most famous for parading knickerless around Buckingham Palace — looks set to take over at Christian Dior, France’s oldest couture house.
Since Gianfranco Ferre announced his departure in
July, speculation has been rife over who will inherit the Dior crown, with everyone from Jean Paul Gaultier to Christian Lacroix and John Galliano being touted as hot favourites.
A recent report in the US style bible Womenswear Daily, however, suggests that Westwood is Ferre’s most likely successor, with further reports suggesting she has, in fact, already been appointed. Nothing will be announced until Ferre retires in October.
The move would be another great step forward for
British fashion, still glorying in the aftermath of John Galliano’s triumphant takeover at Givenchy last year — a move which has been credited with bringing the industry back into the limelight.
But sceptics are wary that Westwood’s talents would
be more difficult to harness than Galliano’s — the extremity of her designs is legendary. She has a passion for hugely elaborate leg o’ mutton sleeves and platformed shoes so high that Naomi Campbell, wearing them, fell flat on her face.
Born in Derbyshire in the UK in 1941, it was not
until the Seventies that Westwood began work as a designer, setting up the rubber-filled shop later to be called Sex with her then husband, punk entrepreneur Malcolm McLaren. By 1976 Sex had become London’s punk HQ.
At its helm was Westwood, the woman responsible for
putting the safety-pin through the Queen of England’s nose on the cover of the Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen.
Westwood’s first catwalk collection, Pirates,
followed in 1981 in London’s Olympia, where she continued to show until, in 1983, she became the first British designer since Mary Quant to be invited to show in Paris.
It was not until the early Nineties, however, that
Westwood’s talents were fully recognised, when she was awarded British Designer of the Year two years running. In 1992 she received a decoration from the Queen and, never averse to more than her fair share of controversy, left Buckingham Palace twirling her skirts provocatively to reveal she was not wearing any underwear.
Westwood, who lives in London with her husband
Andreas Kronthaler, 25 years her junior, may seem an unlikely candidate to take over from Ferre. However, her love of historical content, her belief in fashion as one of the great art forms and her at times almost archaically romantic vision of femininity may make her just the woman for the job.