British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood has died, aged 81.
Her design house released a short statement on Twitter, saying that she died on Thursday 29 December “peacefully and surrounded by her family, in Clapham, South London.”
“The world needs people like Vivienne to make a change for the better,” the statement said.
Dame Vivienne Westwood will perhaps be best remembered as the designer who brought punk style into the mainstream — partnering with Malcom McLaren and his band the Sex Pistols at the intersection of fashion and music.
But she was also a businesswoman, and tireless campaigner for the causes she believed in like the campaign for nuclear disarmament, climate change, and civil rights.
Westwood never shied away from dealing out bold political statements alongside her collections.
As one of the first voices calling for sustainability, her punk rock inauguration into British high fashion ensured that protest was at the heart of her designs from the very beginning.
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