Get a Life

by Vivienne Westwood

  Back to our Indian Summer: I immediately asked myself, what date is it? It must be my son’s birthday. On 3rd September, forty-nine years ago, my then husband Derek and our son Ben – one year old and already scampering around like a little rabbit – were on holiday in North Devon, walking over sand dunes to the sea, larks high in the sky in this glorious weather. Every year since, with just one exception, we have had this same glory: a refined heat in a big blue sky, held in suspense against the cold air that is waiting. It’s great to have the last of the summer sun turn up on cue even amongst the present chaotic weather patterns. This is my Ben’s weather. Happy Birthday, my love.

  Now that the charts are sent, Rosita is waiting for me to check the knitwear samples sent from Italy. We do this together and she notes the corrections. Andreas goes to Italy to work on MAN.

  TUES 4 SEPT CLIMATE REVOLUTION

  I had the day off. I was tired and wasted two or three hours doing a ‘very difficult’ Sudoku (I don’t do it much anymore). It was, nevertheless, good for me; it’s mentally stimulating but relaxing, and I fell asleep. A sleep during the day is the best restorative. I had already been carrying in my mind the idea of ‘Climate Revolution’. It is important to give what is happening a name. The revolution has already begun. throughout the world people are changing their way of life. Save a plastic bag is a first step. We are not alone. We must build it together. When I woke up, I sat down and immediately wrote out a plan of action for the Climate Revolution, which will be the new name for our website.

  Joe de Campos, who does all our graphics and website, put the first Climate Revolution charter online. Climate Revolution is about working with and trying to link to other NGOs, and go on each other’s demonstrations. This is Cynthia’s full-time job and she is often at meetings until ten o’clock at night. She knows everyone. She also tells me what is going on in the world, especially on social media. Planning a demo takes months of meetings. We have designed logos, posters and T-shirts.

  The other thing is to analyse, know your enemy. That is what I try to do. Pin it down to one go, get the idea across. That way you’re clear in speeches and interviews, you deliver a strong message. I read, think and do a lot of writing. When I wake up in the morning I lie awake thinking, then I might do some notes to really pin down the idea. Everything connects.

  WEDS 5 SEPT DAVID BAILEY

  Main event – a photo of me by David Bailey. I chose my grand dress, which is really seven metres of bronze silk paper-thin duchess satin – the weave on the other side is midnight blue. The dress has a cord attached at the back of the neck. I can wear it as a cloak or put a belt round the waist and pull the fabric through to make it into a dress. Under this I wore a T-shirt, ‘Get a Life’. Our photo is for Harper’s Bazaar who want to give me an award for Cool Earth.

  What is it about David Bailey that makes him so attractive? You enter another dimension, pulled to the centre of his attraction, totally happy but on the alert for something to happen. He has the face of a happy devil; his eyes burn like diamonds in amber. He loved the dress and marvelled at the fabric. His eye: ‘Don’t move! Can I?’ – moving my elbow slightly – ‘Don’t stick your tits out! Relax your shoulders!’ – steps forward to make my hair fall a bit better. Serious focus and delight. He does a little hop and his hand dances in the air.

  David subscribes to a magazine called Bird – he has a pair of rare parrots. In the 1970s he and another parrot fancier (rich) were discussing birds. The other one said, ‘Let’s have lunch tomorrow’, so they went to Manila! A different world! Or do some rich Russians still behave like this?

  THURS 6 SEPT THE DRESS THAT BECOMES A BANNER

  Morning coffee with Adrian Cheng at the Wolsey. He is opening a VW shop in Shanghai. This is our first meeting and after five minutes he was my new friend. We are going to do a lot together. He is young and already has done so much. He is lucky enough to be the son of a family business in China, which began a generation ago with jewellery (now the distribution is twice Tiffany’s), and includes many and various enterprises. The whole company strives to be green. Adrian paints and is interested in contemporary art. They have an enormous network of contacts through social media and as we are beginning the Climate Revolution through social media, Adrian will be a route to China.

  Then I go to a rehearsal for the Paralympics. The artist Joe Rush has asked me to be Boudicca on a great flaming chariot. Joe and the Mutoid Waste Company make sculptures out of recycled scrap metal. They’ve been working for months making several giant ones which will be driven round the stadium for the closing ceremony. So now is my first look at these metal floats which are in the form of creatures (my favourite is the horse) and a galleon and (my) chariot. Mind-boggling, epic, so ingeniously worked.

  I escaped quickly to go home so as to avoid questions as to what I was going to wear. My idea is to unfurl a banner for CLIMATE REVOLUTION. I shall take my ‘dress’ – seven metres of fabric – and wind myself up in it. Nobody will know that we have applied giant letters which spell Climate Revolution inside. There are two pockets sewn upside down at the top edge of the banner/dress, and my warriors, Andreas and my son Joe, will stick their spears into the pockets and lift high the dress as I undo it.

  SUN 9 SEPT CLIMATE REVOLUTION AT THE PARALYMPICS

  I was incredibly worried about the Paralympics idea right up until the final day – Sunday. My time was taken working it out, getting it right. What if we missed the moment to time the Climate Revolution banner for the TV cameras? (All they knew was that I would lift the veil off my helmet to reveal my face.) I had to deceive the show producers. I was so helped by Joe, Andreas and Letmiya (Joe Rush’s girlfriend). But once I was on the chariot I was excited. We did it! The inauguration of Climate Revolution.

  My make-up was crucial, too. I was supposed to be Boudicca, the Queen of the ancient Britons, who fought the Romans and used a blue dye called woad for warpaint. And because I am dead serious about the Climate Revolution, I wanted the face of war. I had discovered this face when I drew out the Family Tree – I just drew a face that was the opposite of a smiley face (Wipe that smile off your face!). I painted my face like that and painted arrows on my arms.

  TUES 11 SEPT BELLA FREUD

  Interview for Harpers to go with the Bailey photo. What a treat! They sent me Bella Freud. We haven’t had a long conversation for years. We’ve known each other since we were punks and Bella was once my assistant. We were together in Italy. I was designing the Crini Collection and I stayed with her on weekends in Rome where she was living with her boyfriend. She drove a Vespa like the young Italians and now she came by scooter to our Battersea studio.

  I have just released the dress – now a banner. I stand up and the words CLIMATE REVOLUTION go up on all the videos and are seen by 7 billion people worldwide.

  THURS 13 SEPT GOLD LABEL

  I’ve been continuing to work on Gold Label. The point has passed for Rosita to take on any more work and we continue to work on, especially, the evening dresses. I am still worrying about which fabric goes with which design. Andreas and I work together, and slowly we talk it out. Our fittings involve very much how to sew and how to finish the dresses according to the kind of fabric. Making clothes depends on letting the fabric do what it wants to do.

  FRI 14 SEPT GEORGIA MAY

  I colour my hair then at midday take the tube from Clapham to Highbury and Islington. Then by bus to a studio for a photo shoot for designs we did for Palladium jewellery. I could have had a car but I like public transport. Georgia May Jagger was our model and I had to join in the first session for Grazia magazine who wanted me in some reportage shots (photographer, Sean McMenomy).

  Then Andreas and Juergen Teller arrived for Palladium’s official campaign. I had such a happy time. I like to be with Juergen. He is quiet (concentrated) and at first Georgia May thought perhaps he didn’t like her (she told me). What I had not anticipated was the pleasure I got from being with a young person. Her talk makes everybody
feel good, she’s so sensitive to other people. And how she loves her mum and her family! She brings ‘Mom’ into her talk all the time, tells us how she’s lost ten pounds in one week in training for Strictly Come Dancing. Georgia May is sexy; she just needs to look at you, look into the camera. She’s done no bad thing in her life. Every woman, young or old, would like that jewellery when they see it on her.

  SAT 15 SEPT FRIENDS OF THE EARTH AND RED LABEL

  Friends of the Earth rally in the afternoon, speaking along with Caroline Lucas and a wonderful lady from the Philippines, Lidy Nacpil. I told them about Climate Revolution and, of course, they all laughed that the fight now is not between the classes but between the idiots and the eco-conscious. All NGOs have to work together and the very naming of Climate Revolution gives us that focus.

  The dress that becomes the Climate Revolution banner (at the Red Label show).

  Evening: to the offices at Conduit Street to work on the Red Label show with Andreas, Murray and Yasmine (friend and stylist). Still fitting the girls, styling the outfits and concentrating and clarifying the collection for the presentation. Shoes, bags and Stephen Jones hats. Stephen explained that he made the hats real i.e. as if in an age where people wore hats – and this would be their best hat. We are working with a hair stylist new to us, Mark Hampton. I don’t know what Andreas and Murray told him – something about the Queen, for sure – and he arrives with these wigs; caricatures of wigs from the past, around the 1950s. More than half the girls would have their natural hair – the main inspiration here, Debbie Harry in the 1980s. And then when Val Garland does the makeup it really reminds you of cut-off heads in a wig shop. The face is made up in yellow and Val suggests other colours as well – pink and green. It’s as if the person in the wig shop painted features on to his featureless head blocks – a black line of eyelashes on the skin under one eye, the other eye trying to be the same but a bit different. Val explained that she would grade the level of extremity so that some girls would look more normal.

  Red Label models made up by Val Garland.

  Did I like it? I kept quiet, stayed neutral. Of course I liked it and I knew that with this look you would really see the clothes. It’s just that Val is so crazy, more crazy than me. She and Mark are hyper-artistic. Then we have the nail lady, Marian Newman, who just does her thing. They’re great. Biked home about 3 a.m.

  SUN 16 SEPT RED LABEL SHOW

  At the show. The venue was a great hall in the Foreign Office, nineteenth-century grand classical. Thank you so much to the government for inviting us. The pretty girls looked good in their make-up under the lights at the rehearsal. Interviews. Lights, music, great sound, colour. ‘Rooster’ Sara Stockbridge, singer of the band, with her lovely bass guitar boyfriend, Cobalt. Show starts. Finale, then I unfurled my dress into the Climate Revolution banner, helped by models/warriors Charlotte and Alice.

  Then Cynthia and I went into an anteroom to talk with three of our guests: Suzy Amis Cameron, who is doing a lot especially on education, Samata Angel, Global Campaign Director for Red Carpet Green Dress, a fashion competition we will collaborate on, and Christiana Wylyan, environmental advocate and partner in Satori Capital, a firm focused on sustainable investing. We had the chance to get to know each other and talk about ways we can help each other. We’re all doing Climate Revolution.

  Suzy explained that when she needed a dress for the red carpet – she was a model and actress before becoming the wife of James Cameron who directed Titanic and Avatar – she had to instigate a whole research foundation in order to procure an ethical and ecologically friendly dress. She would like me to guide the winner of the next competition organised by her foundation from the concept to the actual dress and then a celebrity will wear it on the red carpet at the Academy Awards. I had an extra reason for wanting to do this which is to tap into this research for my own use.

  MON 17 SEPT LADY GAGA, LAWRENCE AND BRUNO

  Worked all day on Gold Label running order. I was thrilled to see Lady Gaga wearing a Climate Revolution T-shirt.

  Evening: We were invited to our friend Lawrence’s birthday party. I like Lawrence but I haven’t really found out what he does – something to do with Bill Gates and at the moment getting mobile phones to women in Iraq to empower them, I think. He’s American, finished his education in France, and as well as speaking French, he speaks Arabic, Kurdish and Persian. If he likes you, he loves you and tells you so – that’s how we started.

  We had told Lawrence we were tired and might not make it. I’m so glad we did. The address was near and in the evening we biked over. Lawrence’s party was in the home of his friend Bruno, who introduced himself as our host and led me by the hand. He is Chinese and his family must have lived out of China for some time. I say this because he is cultured and a man does not gain such culture in one generation – and the Chinese revolution smashed culture and smashed all cultured people. I have never seen such works of art, Chinese and Japanese. The dinner, Andreas says he will never forget. I want to see Bruno again as soon as I can.

  Lady Gaga joins the Climate Revolution.

  TUES 18 – FRI 28 SEPT WORKING ON THE PARIS SHOW

  We just did the Red Label show in London; now we do the Gold Label in Paris. Working on the collection, we didn’t know what to do for hats, but Prudence brought an unusual helmet-shaped block (wooden form which the hat is moulded on) and we worked out the materials with the idea that it would introduce something alien – like the metal slab did in 2001. We went to Paris on Wednesday and the collection was already hanging in the showroom there. The clothes looked lovely and we put them in the running order. Girls were still arriving for the casting and some evening dresses and shoes were still to come from London.

  On Thursday I went to the showroom at 4 p.m. to advise on the hair and make-up. I don’t usually know, but this time I had an idea. For the hair use three ideas – all tribal: one was taken from the young male Masai but instead of the locks swept to the back and hanging, leave the hair combed and greasy-looking like a gypsy or rocker, masculine and maybe with a quiff; another was frizz, like Marie-Antoinette; the third was blonde wigs with the comb left in the hair – I had seen this on men from an African tribe. Most of the girls have long hair but we left the ones with shaved heads. And, of course, we had our alien hats.

  The make-up idea was white circular patches in the eye socket, not too strong but so that it looked disconcerting and strange, and a heart shaded around the face. I was worried that Val, our make-up artist, would be frustrated to repeat alien clones and sure enough on the day she developed the idea and the girls were individual in their make-up. But Val’s idea was much better and it did look tribal and alien.

  SAT 29 SEPT THE SHOW AT HÔTEL DE CHAROST

  Luckily, the show wasn’t until 4 p.m. the next day because we weren’t happy yet with the run. But in the end we did our best – trying to include all the ideas, but with no more than fifty outfits. I wrote the press release, then we went home and changed and arrived at the British Embassy at 1.30 p.m. where the ambassador, Sir Peter Ricketts, and his wife welcomed us. The building, the Hôtel de Charost, was bought by the Duke of Wellington from Napoleon’s sister, Pauline Borghese.

  We went to say hello to everybody helping. The girls were still arriving and my favourite memory at this point was a group of these young black models talking and laughing between doing cartwheels on the grass before going to get their hair and make-up done. Andreas went to finish the preparations, allocating jewellery, trying the outfits on again. I talked with the ambassador and did interviews and we watched the run-through, checking the make-up under the lighting. The lighting was done by Toni, who comes from Andreas’s village. He did a super job and the girls walked through splendid rooms.

  Some of Andreas’s sketches for the Paris show.

  At the after-show party, I talked to Trish, a kind, powerful woman who only does good things. She is the wife of Terry Jones, founder and editor-in-chief of i-D magazine. Some of the
girls from the show came, especially one of my favourites, Marta Ortis, who’s just left school and did her thesis on the rainforest. Her friend, who also did the show and lives in Paris with her boyfriend, said it’s difficult to make money there: agency 20 per cent, tax 50 per cent, 30 per cent for her. Elegant, friendly party. Home before midnight.

  SUN 30 SEPT LA CONFERENCE DES OISEAUX

  A lovely day at home. Read La Conference des Oiseaux, a play by Jean-Claude Carrière adapted from a twelfth-century poem by Farid Udin Attar. It was performed in France by Peter Brook’s company and must have been visually marvellous – they used bird masks from Bali. The birds have interesting characters and they meet all kinds of people on their way to discover their King (I got the idea to do my Manifesto as a journey from this play). They always talk in the most everyday expressions, though the text is poetic, and it’s good for my French. I read French but I don’t have much chance to speak it.

  Why else do I love the play? Because it illustrates through little anecdotes and stories and indeed by the whole journey what people in medieval times thought about God and the universe. In their journey to the King – really God – they finally come into his presence, which is a mirror of themselves. It is quite alchemical. People think reading – and indeed all art – is worthwhile only if it is relevant to today. I think it’s very relevant to know what people did think, especially when it’s different. This is what gives you a perspective on your own life. And this perspective is what I consider to be culture. I don’t believe in any grand plan but it is a fact of experience that we have a spiritual dimension to our make-up.