Last year we lost a punk icon. Vivienne Westwood a maverick, a trail blazer, a true rebel. Her style was unforgiving, she held nothing back. She pushed boundaries, broke rules, viewing punk as 'seeing if one could put a spoke in the system'. A lot of her merchandise promoted political causes such as nuclear disarmament, climate change and civil rights, not be mention the 'Sex Pistols' of course.
Personally, the leaf that I take away from Westwood's book is fundamentally loaded with rebelliousness but also with compassion. I loved the fact she 'turned left' and in turn changed the face of fashion forever. She was not afraid to be herself, in an industry that, despite it's commercial message of freedom of style, in fact subconsciously so often does the opposite. She was an artist, with no limits. And what are limits, if only in our minds.
We don't have to try to buck the system or fight against it. We can teach. We can lead by example. We can learn to work together to steer ourselves away from old, damaging ways; ways that have proven to leave swathes of destruction such as landfills full of clothes, factories full of badly treated, poorly paid workers.
Westwood's famous "Buy Less' saying is never more important than it is today. We can buy less and buy well. Take only what we need. Do not fill the already bulging pockets of large corporations and brands. Instead support sustainable, customer focussed smaller brands, whose directives are integrity and transparency and not profit over people.
