Get a Life

by Vivienne Westwood

  I do publicity and interviews so I can talk about climate change. I’ll be doing the interview later.

  One of Craig McDean’s shots for Interview magazine.

  THURS 17 MAY JOYCE DIDONATO

  Morning: interview with Francine Lacqua on the London Eye for Bloomberg TV’s Eye2Eye series. I was so concentrated on what I wanted to say that I didn’t look at the view and though we were back on the ground in the blink of an eye, she was very nice and I made some good points. Worked two hours on World’s End.

  Late afternoon: interview – i.e. filmed conversation – with opera star Joyce DiDonato for the Arte TV network (French/German). I met Joyce because she noticed me in the audience at one of her concerts and sent me a CD. Since then, we have designed for her stage wardrobe. I had never really talked to her before and I didn’t know what to expect. She has a beautiful warmth and sincerity of manner. She grew up in a small town in Kansas but her voice and intellectual curiosity have taken her far from home. She is proud of her home town and brought me some chocolates which are a local speciality. She has thought a lot and is intellectual and artistic. Joyce is so kind and we had a really inspiring talk. I am looking forward to seeing her in a dramatic red gown we are preparing.

  FRI 18 MAY JUERGEN TELLER

  Juergen came to help decide which photos from the shoot to use for our publicity. Stella Tennant has such total class. Andreas enthused, ‘She is just the most perfect representative of the human race; she is everything: young or old, child, woman, man! The mouth alone! Beauty incarnate.’

  I had told Craig McDean that Juergen thinks there are only a few good photographers and Craig replied, ‘I think he thinks there’s really only one.’ I told Juergen and he grinned and put his hand to his forehead, acknowledging the point that he has strong opinions. Juergen admires the work of William Eggleston – not a fashion photographer. Because Eggleston inherited a private income he photographed according to his own lights and never compromised himself for commercial success.

  SAT 19 MAY MORE SUDOKU – I DON’T RECOMMEND IT

  Morning yoga class. At home with Andreas. Instead of reading I spent all day doing one killer Sudoku. Of course I will probably be quicker next time but it’s a terrible investment of time and I only want to do the extra-hard ones. So many hypothetical factors to mark and hold in mind before you can advance one square. I shall really have to limit this. I won’t do any more this month. However, it really is stimulating. I didn’t even feel hungry; I only had breakfast – two bananas and a pear. Please, no comments about Sudoku. I don’t recommend it because I think it’s addictive – but it is an exercise in pure reason.

  MON 21 MAY GOOGLE ZEITGEIST CONFERENCE

  Weather glorious. Left home at 8 a.m. with Cynthia for Google’s Zeitgeist conference at the Grove Hotel in Herefordshire; due to talk in the early afternoon. We went early to get an idea of what the conference was about. The audience was mainly Google advertisers and employees – people with a lot of money and influence.

  The first panel discussion on the current political situation – Greece and the euro – bludgeoned me into incredulity. Worthless discussion about upturns, downturns, cycles and growth and not including the factor of climate change: like preparing the Sunday roast and not turning on the heat because the house is burning down. Why am I here? I can read this stuff in the papers. Anyway, I’m a vegetarian.

  We first met our friend, Marc Koska, at a previous conference. These things are networking opportunities to raise support for our causes. And Marc has a wonderful cause: he invented a disposable syringe – only one-time use is possible – that has saved millions of lives. Massive spread of disease in poor countries is due to using the same syringe and needle on a string of patients. After twenty years of finding ways to combat the practice of drug companies, his safe syringe will become the only model used, supported by the World Health Organization. Great news!

  Lily Cole and Jimmy Wales (the founder of Wikipedia) were interviewed by CNN anchor Becky Anderson. Jimmy is endorsing Lily and her project, giving her the technical help she needs to inaugurate her ‘gifting’ website, ImPossible. I was next. Nobody had yet mentioned climate change and I was bored by the audience and didn’t care what I would say. But I was angry and it all came out anyway – my mantra: climate change is caused by the bad financial system; talk of human values instead of abstract sums about money. When Becky tried to ask me questions I told her, ‘You’re trying to interrupt me’, and carried on in full spate until I was finished. Then! The members of the audience were delighted and clapped and hooted. I was surprised and of course really pleased.

  Then! The lightning struck! Annie Lennox and a presentation on HIV/AIDS and its impact on women and children in Sub-Saharan Africa. ‘Did you know?’ she asked us. ‘One in three women and children die from AIDS in Africa.’ I did not put my hand up; one or two did. She told us that there is treatment to prevent transmission from mother to child at birth. I have never heard anything like this speech. The power of this woman is a phenomenon! Passion and oratory on a grand scale. I told her later and she rang with laughter, ‘Nobody would have listened to Hitler if you’d been around.’

  TUES 22 MAY DINNER WITH JOE

  Yoga class. Shopping (food) and letters. 4 p.m. at work. A photographer called Joanna Brown took an impression of my finger to cast for a charity exhibition (Freedom from Torture). Andreas and I set off on our bikes to a Condé Nast Traveller event where I accepted an award for sustainability on behalf of Cool Earth. Then, as we were in the West End, we made it an evening and met my son, Joe, for dinner. We have lots to talk about but I won’t tell because Joe is not really part of this diary, but he does ‘stuff’. He has a human rights charity called Humanade. He supports Leonard Peltier and also the Inga Foundation, which is an agricultural project which replaces the slash and burn agriculture of the rainforest. On the way home, I looked in at the windows in Selfridges promoting the World’s End shop and showing my graphics, e.g. the Family Tree, which has drawn a lot of attention.

  I loved being out with Andreas. We are so lucky in life and, who knows, this might be the last age of great material wealth. Before I went up to bed I stayed in the kitchen adoring the flowers in the middle of the table. Andreas had bought them. It’s always lovely to choose the flowers yourself rather than letting the florist do it. These are still in their glory but tomorrow it will be over. Thank you, flowers.

  WEDS 23 MAY LILY COLE AND THE RA JUBILEE PARTY

  This evening the Royal Academy hosted a Jubilee party for the arts. The Queen will give the awards.

  I usually borrow something but almost all the Summer collection was in Hong Kong. I spent all day messing about at home but I couldn’t find the right thing in my own wardrobe. I had been asked to go with my muse, and that was Lily Cole, who I was supposed to meet at work. These things can take ages. (One reason for wearing the same things over and again. Chanel had all her clothes organised as outfits with numbers for each.) If it weren’t for Lily, I think I might have just not gone – there were at least 1,000 people there and I wouldn’t have been missed. When I got to work, Andreas had managed to collect a rail of outfits for me and for Lily to choose. So it was all sorted. Andreas did it.

  We arrived, I thought early (it was still only six), but in fact we were late. The organiser kept saying, ‘Please come, I have to get you in.’ But I, true to my own bossy character, delayed in order to talk to the BBC because I’m a great fan of the Queen. The result was I missed being in the group picture of British dames, but never mind.

  Lily Cole, my Royal Academy muse.

  I was able to talk to Lily. She said that the next day at the Zeitgeist conference, former president Clinton gave a good speech and that he did mention climate change. She also told me about a group called World Land Trust (www.worldlandtrust.org), who sound like people we should be working with. I did some networking: Annie (again), Bono and Paul Smith. I hope to involve them in our big event in July – celebrities to
lead the way – saving the planet from climate change. It must have been about 8.30 p.m. when I left. Piccadilly was thronging plus total traffic block. I headed for Green Park tube and headed home. I quite enjoyed being so dressed up on the tube even though the trains were packed.

  THURS 24 MAY PRINCE’S DRAWING SCHOOL

  Dentist. Worked on World’s End. Evening: Andreas and I went to the Prince’s Drawing School for a private view of their club’s annual exhibition. For my speech I had planned to talk of the imagination: insight and the fact that we are cross-wired; that the appreciation of art is direct knowledge and that the foundation of visual art is skill in drawing; the importance of art in creating true culture. The place was packed, half of the audience young children. I hadn’t expected this so I had to adapt my speech and I really enjoyed the task of explaining these intellectual ideas so that young people could understand something of it.

  Prince Charles has identified a well-felt need in establishing this school and its regional drawing clubs. Our stale academies of visual art (e.g. Goldsmith’s) teach only dogma, not skill. Andreas and I were blown away! This school is so great. The facilities are a dream. Kids attend from age ten; with parents’ consent they can do nude life drawing from age twelve (they are taught by artists); students can take an MA arts degree here. There is also a department of Islamic crafts with an incredibly high standard resulting in beautiful objects. The atmosphere vibrates with potential. Andreas and I were really inspired. He can’t wait to receive a drawing of a horse and rider he was allowed to choose.

  At the Prince’s Drawing School. The Family Tree is printed on my dress.

  FRI 25 MAY THANK GOD FOR GREENPEACE

  Thank God for Greenpeace. They’re the ones who got us the Antarctic. It’s international. No one can disturb it. Now they must do this for the Arctic. We must put an end to the obscene quarrels for ownership between the US, Canada, Russia, Norway and Denmark or agree to our own suicide. Greenpeace will do it. The plan is simple genius. More of this another time. John Sauven, Executive Director, Greenpeace UK, and his colleague Sophie came to see me at work. I guess when you plan such a smooth operation as is required you need all the help and support you can get and talking adds to and fixes the idea. Andreas listened, too. He is so visual and auditory (I am more literary). He was so taken by John, by his presence, tranquillity and grace, clarity and determination (these are my words). Small things, bits and pieces for the rest of the day.

  MON 28 MAY SEEDS OF FREEDOM

  Stayed at home until 5 p.m. getting this diary up to date. I can’t seem to find the time to do it day by day. At the moment the pressure for designing the Gold Label collection is off because technical work has been delegated (it’s going to hit again soon). And I like writing this diary. It marks the time so the days don’t all merge into one.

  At 6.00 p.m., I joined Cynthia for a screening of Seeds of Freedom. The film exposes how GM seeds give monopoly of supply to a few giant companies, e.g. Monsanto. GM foods are promoted as providing future food security for the world’s vast population. There is no evidence for this and all the facts are against it. There is more food security in tradition: seeds which have developed thousands of years of resilience to changing conditions and crops which adapt to the environment and diversity of crops. Farmers who changed to GM seeds are locked in a spiral of dependence, increasing poverty and often ruin. Aphid-repellent wheat sounds like a good idea but it’s not; it results in superbugs, monoculture with the risk of entire crop failure and having to buy your seeds for planting each year.

  TUES 29 MAY GEORGE MONBIOT

  Yoga. Shopping. Then meeting with George Monbiot. I am a fan of his writing but I had not met him before, and he very kindly came to see me and Cynthia. My idea is to talk to a few influential people, starting with George, so that we all frame our opinions in the context of climate change.

  Given the state we’re being dragged into, George would have expected thousands – millions – to be out on the street. My son, Joe, says that after the massive demonstration of two million to try to stop the war on Iraq was ignored by the Labour government, people have become too pissed off to bother. (Ignore the public and they’ll go away.) I also think that the twentieth century trained us up to be consumers – we suck up and expect somebody else/the system to provide the solution.

  When I told George about my neighbours facing eviction, he was really touched and shook his head despairingly at the short-term thinking of councillors and bureaucrats. Perhaps we should go out on the streets as the whole thing ties in with being anti the austerity measures. George has just finished his latest book – how by doing right in respect to Gaia she will repair the damage in a very short time, e.g. re-introducing a few wolves into Yellowstone Park has in eight years changed the behaviour of other animals, and the vast park is back to what it was a long time ago.

  WEDS 30 MAY PAMELA AND COOL EARTH AT THE LORDS

  Worked on World’s End. Then to a House of Lords event to mark the fifth anniversary of Cool Earth, to thank everyone for their donations and do a bit more fundraising. Matthew Owen told us what Cool Earth had accomplished so far – and what the plans are for the future – both short and long term.

  When we arrived, the person getting out of the car in front of us was Pamela Anderson, a vision in one of our lace dresses. I was so confused – it was surreal; I wondered where I was. She had come to help us. Darling girl – I couldn’t get over it. We all gave speeches and had many photos taken; friends I hadn’t seen for ages were there. Pamela talked to everybody and had a tour of the House of Lords. Several people came to tell me what lovely people were there. I met Eliza Doolittle and we are going to visit the art galleries together. She was dressed to perfection, sexy and chic.

  Johan Eliasch, the founder (along with Frank Field) of Cool Earth, invited some of us to dinner. Pamela is magic for me, she wrote in an email: ‘How I cherish the two of you (Andreas, too). And I really am impassioned about saving the world, spreading the word… I was up at 3 a.m. … thinking about our dinner. Half afraid, half hopeful.’ She is such a serious person who tries to learn everything she can. Her beloved grandfather was a Finn. She wrote, ‘He taught me about fairy tales, symbolism, alchemy and woods. He was a logger in Canada. The trees spoke to him.’ He used to dance on the small circle cut off at the tops of trees a hundred feet in the air.

  At the Lords with Pamela Anderson and Cool Earth founder Frank Field MP.

  JUNE 2012

  SAT 2 – TUES 5 JUNE TO JOE’S PLACE IN CORNWALL

  On the train with Andreas to my son Joe’s place in Cornwall; we’ll be there with my son Ben and Joe’s girlfriend Faye and friends. One trip to the beach – a bit cold to go in the water. You have to do it straight away. Joe went in. Spent most of my time reading in bed. Too much time spent on Sudoku: you get so you only want to do the really hard ones. I’ve stopped.

  WEDS 6 JUNE I AM NOT A TERRORIST …

  Transition time between holiday and going back to work. At work at 11a.m. and talked strategy to Cynthia, who works with me on everything to do with climate change and manages our political work. After lunch, Cynthia went to a discussion about Julian Assange’s TV interview series, The World Tomorrow. I had to get on with Gold Label which I’ve have been dangerously neglecting.

  What are we doing to help Julian in his hour of need? He is now appealing the UK court decision to extradite him to Sweden, and the Pentagon is determined to get him one way or the other; his sources of public funding have been effectively cut off by the Bank of America and US-based credit cards. My T-shirt, ‘I am not a Terrorist, Please don’t arrest me’ has even greater significance today than when I designed it for Liberty. We need to fight these emergency laws which our governments are using to trap people – not terrorists, not anyone who has done anything illegal but simply anyone they don’t like – like Julian, who is a public hero for exposing their hidden secrets. Of course, Bradley Manning – whose trial has now been delayed until late Novem
ber – is an even greater hero.

  Cindy Palmano’s photo of me with her son, John. We are wearing my ‘I am not a Terrorist, Please don’t arrest me’ T-shirts, designed originally for Liberty.

  If Julian’s last-chance appeal doesn’t work, he faces years in jail for sticking his neck out and telling the truth. Put yourself in his shoes; I would be terrified. Orwell’s 1984 is happening in our world now.

  THURS 7 JUNE A DURIAN

  Awake at 5 a.m. thinking about The Story of the Stone. The characters in the book are so alive to me. I just have the feeling that every person who ever lived, who took part in the vast timeless circle of time, is important, every little life counts and some of those lives are so beautiful even if they don’t manage to survive beyond youth’s golden spring. Early to the dentist. Long session but painless. Popped into Chinatown and treated myself to a durian.

  Work, after lunch: answered questions for a journalist friend’s book. (Fashion is so much about public face, interviews, etc.). Now it was 5 p.m. Did one thing for Gold Label. OK!

  FRI 8 JUNE RAIN, AUSTERITY AND LE MONDE

  Rain, rain, rain! In my lifetime never have we had such rain continuing through spring into summer. I consider it part of the chaos point of climate change. Afternoon interview with Le Monde. It is really a fashion profile, which I try not to do unless it brings in climate change, which the journalist, Veronique, was interested in. I tried to make the point: Everything is connected. If governments would only see everything from the point of climate change, we might be able to solve the problem and the financial problem.