Vivienne Westwood, Don’t Buy a Bomb

Vivienne Westwood: I have a plan 2 save the world. Capitalism is a war economy + war is the biggest polluter, therefore Stop War + change economy 2 fair distribution of wealth at the same time: NO MANS LAND. Let’s be clear, U + I can’t stop war just like that. But we can stop arms production + that would halt climate change cc + financial Cra$h. Long term this will stop war.

April 8th is my 80th birthday. Please read the Manifesto + Diaries + follow the playing cards 2 find out how life changing the new economy will be. Read over + again 2 realize how simple + radical the plan is, then U will change your pattern of life + by talking U will support me in the fight.

One day soon U will say the right thing 2 the right person at the right time make a difference. Put this in your features + columns, + on social media – as journalists U could become activists. I have always combined fashion with activism: the one helps the other. Maybe fashion can Stop War.

‘Buy Less Choose Well Make it Last’ Don’t buy a bomb!

Follow me on climaterevolution.co.uk. ‘Get a life!’.

Vivienne Westwood (born 1941) has been at the epicentre of British fashion since she began selling her punk-inspired designs in Malcom McLaren’s influential Kings Road store, Sex, in the 1970s.

The Dame of the British Empire revolutionised what is deemed appropriate to wear in public. Indeed, it was she who first introduced bondage trousers and other aspects of BDSM, along with safety pins and chains to the fashion mainstream. Her use of 17th and 18th century cutting techniques, especially the radical cutting lines she developed for men’s trousers, continue to be used and emulated today.

Westwood’s first runway presentation titled Pirates was staged in 1981. She has since gone on to create collections titled Savage, Buffalo Girls, New Romantics and The Pagan Years.

An activist by conscience, Westwood often litters her designs with slogans and other political calls to action, though they are no less beautiful for it. Westwood’s primary political concerns have shifted over the years; she is now predominately an activist for climate change, nuclear disarmament and civil rights, especially that of freedom of speech. “I make the great claim for my manifesto that it penetrates to the root of the human predicament and offers the underlying solution. We have a choice to become more cultivated, and therefore more human; or by not choosing, to be the destructive and self-destroying animal, the victim of our own cleverness. To be or not to be…” she wrote in a manifesto entitled Active Resistance to Propaganda.

Westwood studied at the Harrow School of Art and the University of Westminster, taking courses in fashion and silver-smithing, but left after one term. “I didn’t know how a working-class girl like me could possibly make a living in the art world,” she said. After taking up a job in a factory, then training to be an educator, she became a primary school teacher. During this period, she also created her own jewellery, which she would sell at a stall on London’s Portobello Road.

Vivienne Westwood was one of the most influential cultural figures of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Renowned for revolutionising fashion through a practice that fused history, politics and rebellion, she transformed the runway into a platform for activism, using her global profile to campaign for environmental protection, civil liberties, human rights and peace.

Emerging from London’s punk movement of the 1970s, Westwood challenged conventions of taste, identity and power with a body of work that reshaped contemporary fashion. From her early collaborations with Malcolm McLaren to her internationally celebrated collections, she drew upon centuries of art, literature and political thought to create a visual language that was both radically subversive and deeply informed by cultural history. Throughout her career, she remained committed to the belief that culture and education could inspire meaningful social change.

Westwood’s relationship with CIRCA reflected this conviction. In 2021, on the occasion of her 80th birthday, she presented Do Not Buy A Bomb, a special public commission broadcast on Piccadilly Lights. Combining performance, music and political manifesto, the work delivered an urgent message linking war, environmental destruction and economic inequality, while calling for a fundamental reimagining of society’s priorities. Accompanied by a limited-edition publication, the project exemplified her lifelong determination to use creativity as a catalyst for public debate and collective action.

Beyond fashion, Westwood became one of the most recognisable activist voices of her generation, championing causes ranging from climate justice and anti-war movements to freedom of information and indigenous rights. Her campaigns, speeches and public interventions demonstrated an unwavering belief that artists and designers have a responsibility to engage with the world around them. Through a legacy that extends far beyond clothing, Vivienne Westwood remains an enduring symbol of creative resistance, independent thinking and the power of culture to challenge the status quo.