Fashion Quote: Vivienne Westwood on Making Less Clothes

I’ve got a personal loathing for Vivienne Westwood because of an absolutely terrible customer service incident many years ago – and it doesn’t help that I think that everything she makes, aside from her jewelry, is kind of ugly. But I’m not writing about that today, instead I’d like to talk a little bit about her recent stance on the fashion world and buying clothes.

Vivienne Westwood photographed wearing eveningwear in an African township. #classy

For a few years now, Vivienne Westwood has been telling people to buy less clothes (I believe her intent was to say buy less cheap crap and only buy a few good things – something I can get on board with.) In a recent interview with the The Guardian, Westwood explained that “Clothes should cost a lot more than they do…” I certainly agree that fast fashion is too cheap, but when you’re a fashion designer selling $60 keyrings, $240 cotton canvas bags, and $200 t-shirts, you should probably keep your mouth shut about the cost of clothing. We all know these items have ridiculous margins – and she confirmed that when she said this:

“I’m trying to pull the collection back to things I really like … I think this is the most environmental thing we can do … I only need to make the clothes I like. I have the money, so I don’t need to make things I don’t like.”

I guess she has made a lot of money selling things like these ugly culottes for $715 and red fingerless gloves for $240.

So – Westwood is basically saying that now that she is rich from her money she made from her fashion company, she doesn’t have to make ugly clothes anymore. Which implies that in the past, she made clothes she didn’t like just to get rich. How disgusting is this comment? What kind of designer makes “things they don’t like” simply to earn money? A crappy one, that who. You suck, Vivienne Westwood. And you are a massive hypocrite.

Vivienne Westwood portrait from here.