Vivienne Westwood Gives England The Finger

Dame Vivienne Westwood photograph by Juergen Teller – The National Portrait Gallery – J.P. Morgan Fund for New Commissions

Vivienne Westwood gives England the finger at her Red Label show on Sunday 14 September 2014 – London Fashion Week SS15!

If you’d asked me yesterday which way Vivienne Westwood would vote in the Scottish independence referendum, I’d have said, “NO!” (by the way, she doesn’t get a vote!) Surely this intelligent fashion designer and businesswoman, who’s very much a part of the “establishment,” (she is a fucking Dame for Christ’s sake!) with shops all over the world, wouldn’t really want to split up the United Kingdom and make it smaller and disconnected, at a time when the world is becoming more connected, more like a “global village”? Seemingly, she does!

Then again, if I’d actually thought about it… well, the signs have always been there right from the early King’s Road days. Vivienne Westwood is a woman who wants to push a stick into the spokes of the system, the establishment, England, and watch the rider go arse over tit. Why? Because anarchy has made her a shed load of cash.

In the early King’s Road, Malcolm McLaren days, they used reverse psychology as an effective marketing strategy. There were plenty of cheap, risqué, shock tactics and gimmicks too, that worked well in an era of Habitat, Margaret Thatcher and Pink Floyd – BDSM (Bondage and Discipline (BD), Dominance and Submission (DS), Sadism and Masochism (SM)), Swastikas, Nazi bondage, upside down crucifixes and sticking two fingers up at HRH just thirty years after WW2 was Very subversive, provocative, anarchistic, anti-establishment and anti-christian; they were sticking two fingers up at the journalists as well, because they could hardly print a fucking word!

For Vivienne Westwood being unpatriotic isn’t just a marketing strategy, it’s a part of her “angry political activist,” DIY, ironic punk philosophy.

Vivienne Westwood as Margaret Thatcher - Tatler April Fool issue 1989

Here’s Vivienne Westwood as Margaret Thatcher – Tatler April Fool issue 1989

She knows how to get them talking! And by declaring, ‘I hate England,’ the Vivster has certainly done that.

Over the next few days there’s going to be plenty of negative comments pointed towards Westwood, which is a pity; this woman who cycles around London, cares about the community and supports many worthy causes, is doing the Scottish poor a Massive injustice, because it is they who will suffer so dreadfully if the YES vote wins.

Never mind the bollocks #VoteNo