INDUSTRY INSPO Under The Big Top With Vivienne Westwood Spring 2021 Ready-To-Wear

Vivienne Westwood brings the escapades of a raucous circus to the new Spring 2021 ready-to-wear collection. Perhaps as a play on the seemingly surreal events permeating our society at this juncture, Westwood’s collection notes state: “Dress for the time of day, or don’t dress for the time of day - wear your evening clothes to the office if you go back to work, mix seasons - our aim is to show only one collection a year.”

This notion, being way ahead of the game particularly on the sustainability front, is in-keeping with Westwood‘s long-standing advocacy for sustainability and is yet another early deviation from industry norms. It’s a continuation of her rebuttal to the industry’s fraught relationship with sustainability, a statement rejection of the long-established multi-seasonal output of fashion, very much coinciding with industry discourse at present.

The gender-neutral collection boasts a ringmaster’s assembly of women in off-kilter tailoring, and a caucus of men in jersey viscose dresses, each with ornate prints based on artworks by Chrissie Hynde and Anthony Newton. The exchange of artwork for fashion included a donation to Hynde’s charity, and a reworking of Newton’s work into a lace trompe l’oeil.

As a truly adaptable collection, each piece should fit the bill for sustainably-minded incendiaries, particularly with its inclusion of sustainability notes that accompany. Following the declaration of a perennial collection, while Westwood’s pieces pepper wardrobes in a mix of seasons, we eagerly await the annual blooming of the veritable Cirque du Westwood.