Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Vivienne Westwood, born Vivienne Isabel Swire

British Punk and New Wave Fashion Designer and Businesswoman

"Purposes evolve from men’s needs... Philosophy is anthropocentric."

"But, the thing is, since I always had my own little shop and direct access to the public, I've been able to build up a technique without marketing people ever telling me what the public wants."

"But, having a perfume and license, in general, is a financial necessity. A designer must, to reap back the money spent on prototypes and all that sort of thing."

"Even though it was the 70s, we found old stocks of clothes that had never been worn from the 50s and took them apart. I started to teach myself how to make clothes from that kind of formula."

"Fashion is very important. It is life-enhancing and, like everything that gives pleasure, it is worth doing well."

"Every time I hear that word, I cringe. Fun! I think it's disgusting; it's just running around. It's not my idea of pleasure."

"Fashion is about eventually becoming naked."

"Feminists wish women to seem like men. They're not men."

"I think dress, hairstyle and make-up are the crucial factors in projecting an attractive persona and give one the chance to enhance one's best physical features."

"I think feminists are unaware of the tremendous extent of the role of women in history."

"I think some people would love to be able to make the clothes I make - and of course, I do influence them, but they keep simplifying, and minimalism doesn't quite work."

"I was the first person to have a punk rock hairstyle."

"I don't have space to enter into the examples or the history of this, so I'm left with having to make the bold statement that culture is extinct."

"I am attracted to people who make this effort in knowing what suits them - they are individual and stylish."

"However, because Britain is young and exciting, I did show my second line here once or twice."

"I thought Sex And The City was supposed to be about cutting-edge fashion and there was nothing remotely memorable or interesting about what I saw...I went to the premiere and left after ten minutes."

"I think stamped-out clothing is just for clones and I think that everybody looks terribly miserable. Fashion is life-enhancing and I think it's a lovely, generous thing to do for other people."

"I was still interested in the youth rebellion but never-the-less I stopped being a victim. Stopped trying to attack the establishment realizing that it takes too much of your energy."

"I was walking down the street in rubber negligées and high-heel stiletto shoes at a time when other people were wearing denim, flares and platforms. You felt very heroic. I knew I looked good."

"If people are not thinking then we really don't have any future."

"If you ask me what I think people should be getting next season. I'll tell you what I'd like them to buy—nothing. I'd like people to stop buying and buying and buying..."

"It is extremely difficult to say how long the process actually took to finally achieve my fragrance, Boudoir, because there was a lot of time waiting around for other people."

"I'm anti-feminist. They don't see the wood for the trees and everything has to be viewed from this feminist point of view. I know women have suffered and I think it's great that people stand up for women's rights but the problem with feminists is that they somehow consider women to be superior beings. And in the end, they just want to be men anyway. They want to do men's work."

"In Italy they take cheap cloth and make it look expensive, but I take expensive cloth and make it look cheap. They just don't understand."

"Intelligence is composed mostly of imagination, insight, things that have nothing to do with reason."

"It is not possible for a man to be elegant without a touch of femininity."

"My manifesto is saying, essentially, every time you learn something, you see something you understand, you are helping to change the world and you are a freedom fighter. Even if it just means looking a word up in the dictionary you didn't know before."

"Personally I'm not a feminist, as I can't stand puritans."

"The muscular, athletic type is not representative of the human race, who are varied in their physique."

"The arts have only ever interested a small minority of people, which acted as a kind of nursery to support artists."

"The young Japanese, especially, love to wear the latest thing and when they come to London they head for my shops as part of what they want to find in Britain."

"The young need discipline and a full bookcase."

"There's something really awful about the way people dress now. Everyone looks the same. Everyone wants to look neutral."

"There is no hierarchy of values any more. Real progress is due mainly to human genius, and that's rare, and usually stems from a real elite, from a hierarchy."

"There's this idea that somehow you've got to keep changing things, and as often as possible. Maybe if people just decided not to buy anything for a while, they'd get a chance to think about what they wanted; what they really liked."

"We wanted to create a feeling of being inside a womb, but in a sort of sex torture chamber."

"Wandering around the shelves [of a library] from Aldous Huxley to Flagellation, Coco Chanel to Tourette's Syndrome."

"We wanted to step off our island and add the color of the third world. We got gold cigarette paper and stuck it around our teeth. We really did look like pirates and dressed to look the part."

"Why do people think that if you don't dress up, others will appreciate your beauty more – that style will somehow emanate from you? It's rubbish. If you dress up it helps your personality to emerge––if you choose well."

"When we were young and I fell in love with Malcolm, I thought he was beautiful and I still do. The thought of him dead is really something very sad. We hadn't been in touch for a long time."

"When we were young I fell in love with Malcolm [McLaren]. I thought he was beautiful and I still do. I thought he was a very charismatic, special and talented person. The thought of him dead is really something very sad."

"You have a much better life if you wear impressive clothes."