Fashion designer, queen of punk and eco warrior, Vivienne Westwood, has shown her support for fellow environmentalist, Prince Charles, in her latest collection shown at Milan Fashion Week.
The designer sent models down the runway wearing t-shirts and other pieces adorned with Prince Charles’ face – wearing a jaunty military beret. The prince’s style – and a certain Englishness – was also represented in the collection in the form of lashings of houndstooth, tweed and tailoring.
Dame Westwood said of the collection,
“I want to pay tribute to Prince Charles and the great job he’s doing.
“If Prince Charles had ruled the world according to his priorities during the last 30 years, we would be all right and we would be tackling climate change.”
Dame Westwood has amped up her environmental activism in recent years.
Reconciling her stance on climate change and working in the fashion industry (an industry not especially known for being good to the environment) has been a evolutionary process. She told the Observer last year that her approach now is about quality over quantity and scaling back her business.
“I have decided not to expand any more. In fact I want to do the opposite,” she said.
And Westwood puts her money where her mouth is,
“Do I feel guilty about all the consumption that the fashion world promotes? Well, I can answer that by saying that I am now trying to make my own business more efficient and self-sustaining,” she said.
Over the years Westwood has flown the flag for environmental activism with slogan t-shirts on the catwalk, had model Lily Cole interpretive dance a climate change message before a London Fashion Week show, joined fellow environmental activist Pamela Anderson in a campaign to save the rainforests and has also shown her support for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Vivienne Westwood wears one of her Prince Charles t-shirts on the runway at Milan Fashion Week.
Vivienne Westwood shows her support for Julian Assange.
Vivienne Westwood and fellow environmentalist, Pamela Anderson.
Lily Cole dances for Vivienne Westwood’s London Fashion Week show in 2013 with a climate change message.