Get a Life

by Vivienne Westwood

  OCTOBER 2012

  MON 1 OCT FONTAINEBLEAU

  In Paris, we stay with my friend Andy Stutz (we use his silks in our grand dresses). His flat is across the river from the Eiffel Tower, which we can see from the balcony. But now we had to move because he was leaving that day and a friend he shares the flat with was coming. We had a room at the Crillon hotel and a driver picked us up for the move and then drove us to Fontainebleau, in the countryside outside of Paris. The style of this castle reminds you of the Three Musketeers. We really enjoyed the beautiful weather in this small French town and came back in time to go to the Saint Laurent show.

  We said goodbye to our driver, Johann. I liked him so much. He had been with us all the time and once he was late so we left without him. He was so beautifully sorry, so dignified and genuinely polite that my heart went out to him.

  We went to the Saint Laurent show wearing our T-shirts, me in CLIMATE REVOLUTION and Andreas with his ‘I am Julian Assange’ and we sat next to Kate Moss. Kate wants to meet again the next day for breakfast. She gets up early – 6 a.m.

  TUES 2 OCT KATE AND JAMIE

  We met Kate and Jamie Hince for lunch with some of their friends. I tell her where we’re at with Climate Revolution. She’s really excited and involved. Jamie has booked himself onto the Siberian Express, something he’s always wanted to do. He’ll work on his next songs. After, we go to the showroom and Kate tries things on. This girl really has got style. Such an intimate rapport between the clothes and her body, she really knows how to use it and she has so much energy. Talking. Never tired. It’s good for Andreas and me to see how the clothes fit on a woman who really understands clothes – we will adjust, make one or two changes. Jamie says, ‘My idea of the perfect strip show is women getting dressed.’

  At the Saint Laurent show with Andreas.

  Kate and Jamie were going to the McQueen show. On the way, we stop off to see a small collection of underwear of our friend Yasmine Eslami (Yasmine helped with styling both the Red Label and Gold Label shows). Fashion people are there. Kate’s so pleased to see them. All friends, throwing her arms around them. Kate tried on the underwear and bought a set. She kept the bra on and thought her vest looked better with it. She’s wearing a little camouflage army jacket – a bit too small – which she won on a shooting range. Andreas says to me, ‘What a lovely little thing, so kind, running around.’

  They dropped us off and we went to the bar. Andreas hardly drinks but he’d had some wine and we carried on, joined by our friend Sabina, a fashion stylist, and her boyfriend, Michael, who deals in second-hand clothes and supplies them to designers to copy. He was thoughtful and seemed clever. One thing he said that I don’t agree with was that now we have popular culture all the interesting things come from there, like pop music. With this he seemed to imply that we don’t need to listen to ‘old’ music anymore.

  WEDS 3 OCT BY TRAIN TO LAKE COMO

  We leave Paris by train for Italy. We have an appointment in Como. The reason we stayed in Paris two extra days was because it wasn’t worth travelling home; we could go on by train, which I much prefer to flying. We went down to Lyon and across the Alps (spectacular!) to Milan. At the border the police took off two young men who were illegal immigrants. Poor people.

  From Milan, we drove to Como. The lake, surrounded and protected by mountains, has since the Renaissance attracted the rich, who have built their villas here. We stayed in the Villa d’Este, considered to be the best hotel in the world. I had been here once before for the silk fabric fair. Silk is important here. Why were we here? We weren’t exactly sure. We had been invited by Morris, the owner of Montero, which produces the scarves we design, as a rose has been named after me. It was most important to him that we should come – therefore, we came.

  THURS 4 OCT JAZZ AT THE VILLA ERBA

  We took a trip on the lake and disembarked at one of the small towns where we lunched and looked around. Then at 7 p.m. we went to a jazz concert in the Villa Erba, home of the Viscontis. Luchino Visconti was one of the great, great film-makers and, as Andreas said, being born into such a family, style and luxury, no wonder he had such solidity, such standards: ‘It didn’t come from nowhere, did it?’ The villa was immaculate in its grandeur. It was lit up in the near distance as we approached through the green shapes of the garden. I liked the concert. I’ve never really got anything out of jazz but I liked this, probably because I liked the players. They were so sweet and sympathetic and dedicated and talented. But a quartet playing Mozart or Debussy is so much more profound and elevating.

  FRI 5 OCT NAME OF A ROSE

  Arrived at the rose ‘event’ at 3 p.m. Andreas explained that it was a horticultural fair – everything from potatoes to orchids to garden furniture – where people from all around Italy come to show and sell, and this year the prizewinning rose is dedicated in my honour. It is the brainchild of Morris. I really do love the rose. It has a faint but special spicy smell. Something about the way the petals curl back when the flowers open and the form changes in its different stages and also the salmon colour changes from a more yellow to a more pink hue. It grows all summer long.

  Before we left Como and the Villa d’Este, Andreas told me off: ‘Vivienne, you want to explain the world but you haven’t understood the magnificence of this hotel. There is nothing like it in the world. It was built in the Renaissance and has been maintained in peak condition ever since. Nothing is wasted. Look at these garden chairs – they were bought in the 1950s and every year at the end of the season they are cleaned and repaired – if necessary repainted – they just unscrew the brass knobs and paint them. Can you imagine any other hotel doing that? Through the different trends of the 1960s, 70s and 80s – they’d just throw them out and get new ones. This is your ecology, this hotel!’

  MON 8 – FRI 12 OCT A VISIT FROM TATI

  The nicest thing this week was a visit from Tati, who has modelled for us in our shows and in two campaigns. She’s Argentinian and came with a great bouquet of chrysanthemums. She’s an art lover. She had been working with Miu Miu and told how she enjoyed it; she’s fascinated by how the designers put outfits together; she loves to be part of it. Tati is creative and, like all creative people, she lives in another world as well as this one. She has been to Machu Picchu, walking with a guide – you have to chew coca leaves because of the altitude. Her guide was the wisest person she had met; if you hurt your leg they just give you something, because they understand everything in relationship, understand the planet they stand on.

  Andreas has spent every waking hour of the week, even once getting up at 4 a.m. with the stress of it all, preparing for our visit to Vienna. Our friend, Gregor, is opening a Vivienne Westwood shop there and for this we are doing a fashion show. We have an invitation to present this in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, one of the six great galleries of Western painting. So the show has to be great – we will show evening wear and select from our past two collections. We are also allowed to spend all of the Monday in the gallery shooting our next ad campaign.

  The problem for Andreas is the outfits have been worked on before for collections, therefore our team of colleagues could prepare all of this for the shoot and the show and it would be good; but not good enough for Andreas – it has to be super-sexy and divine and only he can do that. So he makes himself responsible for every fashion decision, logistics, budget – the lot. I got involved at points where I had to.

  SAT 13 OCT MAXIMILLIAN I EXHIBITION IN VIENNA

  We went to Vienna on Saturday to have time to calm down before the show. We stayed at the Sacher hotel. Andreas loved the rooms so much; he felt so at home.

  We walked across the road to the Albertina, famous for its collection of drawings and prints. The exhibition was about Kaiser Maximillian I (1459–1519), who enlarged the Holy Roman Empire and established the Habsburgs as its emperors, mostly by clever marriages for himself and his children: ‘Let others live by Mars: we rely on Venus’. He employed the artists of his time �
� famous among them, Altdorfer and the unbelievably skilled Dürer – to publish and consolidate his position for posterity through propaganda: his maxim, ‘The emperor never dies’.

  Maximillian made great use of printing, e.g. The Arch of Honour, a gigantic coloured woodcut the size of a wall which he sent around Europe in numbered sheets so that it could be re-assembled. It illustrates his accomplishments, historic scenes and a fake family tree tracing his ancestors back to Moses and Julius Caesar. The most impressive artefact was the Triumphal Procession of the Emperor Maximillian by Altdorfer, a frieze of vellum sheets stuck together, half a metre high and fifty metres long (the first half is missing – it was originally 100 metres). Such skill: you can’t make a mistake on vellum (as with ink on paper, you have to start again).

  I would also mention the most beautiful suit of armour ever made, not least because of the proportion. It would have perfectly fitted Andreas – so Maximillian was a tall man – especially for the age – with model proportions.

  SUN 14 OCT WATTEAU

  I saw a painting for sale in a famous auction house. If there is any painting I would like to have it would be a small Watteau and I especially love his scenes of soldiers resting in camp. And here it was. It was the most perfect thing, though someone had once chopped away six centimetres on one side. If you bought it, you could live with it – a vision fixed in time, it would bring security into your home. We visited the new shop and then worked on preparing the clothes for the shoot.

  Juergen arrived, Kate arrived from holiday with her mum, and we had supper in the really cosy hotel.

  MON 15 OCT SHOOTING AT THE MUSEUM

  Shooting for our advertising campaign. I know the Kunsthistorisches Museum well, the paintings are tremendous; part of my job was hurrying around choosing which paintings suited the different outfits. I had to wear a few outfits, so did Andreas, but we mostly left it up to Kate. We also shot in the rooms under the galleries where the picture restoring happens and we met my friend, Elke, working. She restored one of the world’s most mysterious and precious works – a late Titian of a nymph and a shepherd. Juergen was very happy.

  The show at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches museum.

  TUES 16 – WEDS 17 OCT THE SHOW

  Karma. Was it Andreas’s angst which now produced such a beautiful show? The show was truly marvellous in this sensational setting. I sat with Andreas and watched as the girls walked their itinerary through the rooms and then saw them coming back, so there was this constant appearance and re-appearance of beauties.

  Andreas left early the next morning to go to Italy to work on MAN. I went to the new shop to work on how to improve it. It just needed to be more of a mess, more tactile and attractive.

  FRI 19 OCT SCHOOL OF HISTORICAL DRESS

  Back in London, I attended the launch of the School of Historical Dress, founded by my friends Santina Levey and Jenny Tiramani. I am a patron and gave a speech on the importance of tradition. Santina and Jenny each have a lifetime of experience of research in historical dress. They have been curating the work of Janet Arnold who, to my own particular benefit, made patterns of historical dress and published them in diagram so that I was able to scale them up and work from them.

  I have a book on lace by Santina herself – of comprehensive magnitude – you can guess what period the examples come from, so exquisitely do they mirror the aesthetic of the time. It is a work of great scholarship. Like Janet Arnold, these curators carry the baton of tradition. Without them we would not have the key to the past. I would do anything for splendid Santina. At the moment the school is peripatetic – they are looking for a building and I think with the bright fire of Jenny’s dedication they will get it.

  WEDS 24 OCT WITH JULIAN ASSANGE

  Together with Andreas I managed to begin work on Gold Label, starting with fabrics and yarns. At five I went to visit Julian Assange with Cynthia. We were wearing the ‘I am Julian Assange’ T-shirts; the face is mine, looking like a man (photo by Juergen Teller). They will be on sale soon and all profits will go to WikiLeaks. You know, they’ve had 90 per cent of donations blocked by Visa, MasterCard, Western Union, PayPal, Amazon and Bank of America.

  I support Julian Assange because he’s clever and brave and the founder of WikiLeaks – a brilliant organisation in the public interest which exposes facts concealed and misinformation published by the authorities for their own protection. Therefore the authorities wish to punish him; they’re out to get him at all costs. The Swedish government is asking for Julian’s extradition. This is a ploy to extradite him from there to the US. The press constantly re-iterates that Julian has been charged with sexual offences. He has not been charged. He is the subject of a preliminary investigation involving allegations of sexual misconduct.

  Julian is so full of facts – a visit is like going to school to learn the world political situation. We agreed that it’s not profitable to battle against the wilful confusion directed at him by the press. I hope that this will eventually bore people by its negativity and they will be more interested in those journalists who tell the truth. The totality of his actions has been in the public interest. I don’t propose to say anything about his present living conditions – that’s his business, he made the decision. If he had not made that decision, I am sure he would be in solitary confinement in the US. (My opinion of Sweden – and Britain – is, of course, at rock bottom.) I personally applaud and am grateful for Ecuador giving him political asylum and standing up to the US.

  Supporting Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy.

  I took Julian wine but he would rather have had fruit.

  FRI 26 OCT CLIMATE RUSH AND THE INGA FOUNDATION

  Visit from Tamsin Omond of Climate Rush and her colleague, Juliet Chard. The idea is that activists should try to work together. It was an exhilarating meeting. We will be able to help each other a lot with the Climate Revolution. Cynthia and I have begun to meet key people who often contact us with a view to the application of our agenda for the Climate Revolution. We are saying little until we fit our plan together – but it’s happening!

  We talked about the documentary, Up in Smoke, about the incredible work being done by the Inga Foundation in Latin America. The farming system developed by its founder, Mike Hands, over twenty years of experimentation, can make the destructive slash and burn farming techniques – which contribute so heavily to rainforest destruction – a thing of the past. Guardian Online is running the story in three sections.

  After work, biked over to Belgravia for my friend Steve’s party. He sells art. Large drawing room, thirty-odd people – possible to sit – servants, buffet with exquisite food, conversation. Rich society people from different countries who contribute to charities, diplomats, property developers, people who buy art, artists. A teenage Asian boy (fashionable) was introduced to me and he was so sweet, having to cope with his outrageous father – who has tried to buy (offering many thousands) some of our amazing MAN showpieces for his personal wear.

  WEDS 31 OCT I HATE AMERICA! WOMAN OF THE YEAR

  Recorded a short film for Amnesty: my freedom to think and do in contrast to the terrible things that happen to people. I talked about kindness. Kindness is what makes us human and our intelligence is rooted in empathy – by putting ourselves in somebody else’s shoes we start to understand. The film ended with the stark detail of what happened to Azza Suleiman for helping someone. Human rights are part of Climate Revolution because it will lead to a better world.

  Not for sale! This showpiece jacket – entitled ‘Slave to Love’ – was embroidered by Mr Pearl. A ‘cut’ at the heart bleeds with dripping red beads.

  After work, I called in to see Renaud Poutot, a designer of speciality bikes, who wants to give me a bike – but these were so luxurious I wouldn’t know quite what to do with one and I like my own bike. I will think about it. Then on to the Harper’s ‘Woman of the Year’ awards at Claridges. Sitting next to Dinos Chapman, I mentioned in passing that I hate America. Chrissy Bla
ke, wife of Peter Blake, the artist, berated me, ‘You can’t hate America. The music! You can’t hate a country!’ I think I can hate a country, at the same time as not hating every person in it. Myself, I am very grateful to the hippies who politicised my generation – not only in America, but worldwide. I would guess that half the NGOs in the world are American and these are people who are trying to right the wrongs of US and world policy. My heroes are ‘Hanoi Jane’ Fonda and Gore Vidal, who fought American injustice; as well as the American Indian Movement, Leonard Peltier, Black Equal Rights Movement, Martin Luther King.

  It is the case that foreign policy in the West is determined by the US and that it dominates world policy institutions. Europe follows its economic rules and China copies it. Though most Americans have never been out of the country, they believe America owns the world. What’s good for America is good for God. And for this reason, they are the most hypocritical country. As for music, black music and Elvis. Elvis was as great a talent as any opera singer. I’m not so sure about Hollywood, their horrible hamburgers and their drones. I am not patriotic about Britain.

  I received an award for inspiring people. So in my speech I talked about Cool Earth (I hope we get some contributions) and the Climate Revolution. The most serious honour (for journalists) was awarded posthumously to brave Marie Colvin and the acceptance speech on her behalf, by war photographer Don McCullin, was proud and heroic: regarding the Syrian oppressor Assad, he said, ‘We will continue our reports; we will get them in the end.’