VIVIENNE WESTWOOD MERGES FANTASY WITH REALITY 

At the cusp of 2023, in the cradle of the twilight hours between Christmas and New Year, the internet was pulsating with collective memories but the flood of tributes to Vivienne Westwood was unlike any other fashion memorial. Alongside the eulogising captions and carousels of archival runways, our feeds were brimming with politically charged quotes in which the designer both demanded and inspired change. 

Eternally outspoken, Vivienne Westwood treated fashion and politics as twin flames, using each to aggravate the other to a higher purpose. After more than three decades steering fashion’s conscience, her passing opened a vacuum of thought at the very height of British design. In her absence, LN-CC partners with photographer and former social worker Guy Bolongaro, to conceive her eponymous label as a protagonist of the imagination in the most everyday spaces. 

Vivienne Westwood is adept at blurring the seams of reality. From its inception, the house has warped the spaces in which we experience our daily lives; squeezing experimentation and gender nonconformity into every conceivable public space. In the world of Westwood, menswear comprising clashing tartans, graffitied graphics, romantic tailoring and rows of delicately strung pearls, paint a new normal across supermarkets, offices, nightclubs and schools. 

For Autumn/Winter 23, the icon of British couture continues its journey through interiors, redefining the concept of home and belonging by inserting unexpected delights into the planes of our everyday existence. Nostalgic for the past and bursting with the creative energy of the house’s namesake, the collection follows Andreas Kronthaler as he harnesses the notion of DIY and morphs it into an elegant capsule that defies the passing of time. Viewed through Bolongaro’s somewhat surrealist lens, Vivienne Westwood’s plush velvet suiting, calf hair ankle boots and billowing stripey pants inject the mundane with an extraordinarily potent shot of whimsy.