Today feels like a celebration of the imprint that Westwood has made on the new generation, an optimistic assertion of a self-propelled orbit that has always defied categorisation. Dogged in the past by an idea that she was simply the interpreter of other people’s ideas, God save the fool who would deny her influence now. Born to working-class parents in Tintwhistle, Derbyshire in 1941 – her accent is still strong – Westwood has gone from selling jewellery on a west London street stall to helming a global fashion institution. But for someone who is consistently asked about her youth, she would much rather concentrate on what’s now, and next. “It’s not true, this old idea that Malcolm (McLaren) and other people used to have, that somehow when you’re young you’re full of fire and rebellion and enthusiasm, and when you get old you just become useless,” she says with a smile. “No, the opposite is true. The older you get, (the more) your life becomes richer. It’s incredible.”
Towards the end of the day, Adam Leach and Freyja Newsome, two arts students, are discussing what punk means to them. (Adam danced on a podium during the brand’s AW18 show, a perversely memorable performance that has since become legend.) “Earlier on Andreas was asking whether we consider ourselves punks and I wasn’t sure what to say,” Adam explains. “It’s an interesting question, whether the movement dies…” “…or continues with a different expression,” finishes Freyja. In fact, when the cast submitted the question they would like to ask Westwood, the notion of what being punk in 2018 might mean – if it means anything at all- came up more than once. To look at them, or anyone else in the cast today, the unbroken thread is clear to see. But when this generation is separated from Vivienne’s anarchic upstarts by over five decades, several changes in government, and, it has to be said, thousands of pounds of student debt, it’s equally obvious that new articulations of that same spirit become not only urgent, but perhaps necessary. Fighting for LGBTQ rights and a UK without Theresa May – it’s all punk by a different name. Vivienne would surely agree.
“I guess I’m a punk because I’m a fighter. You’re born with the character you’ve got, and I will always fight. I can’t help it” – Vivienne Westwood
