Punk Queen Vivienne
Westwood on Monday dedicated her new menswear collection to Prince Charles,
saying the world would be a wonderful place if he been put in charge of it.
Sporting a beret and a typically wry smile, the face of the heir to the
British throne made a surprise appearance in Milan, emblazoned on the
T-shirt
the veteran designer wore as she took the applause at the end of her 2015-16
autumn/winter show.
“I’ve been a big fan of Prince Charles for a long time and I have spoken to
him and even tried to help him sometimes with getting support for his
project
to save the rainforests,” Westwood told AFP-TV.
“He invited me to come and see him at (the prince’s country residence)
Highgrove, I’ve had quite long chats with Prince Charles — I think he’s
absolutely wonderful.”
Westwood, whose designs helped shape the look of British punks in the
1970s, added: “He’s a visionary. Right back in the 1970s as a young man, he
realised we have to live in harmony with the earth.
“And all his charities have made such a difference, they’ve really helped
people, they’re very practical and solid things, they build communities,
support people. It really works on a very human way all his charities. We
would have a wonderful world if he had ruled it in all that time.
‘Moth-eaten jackets’
Westwood’s husband, the Austrian designer Andreas Kronthaler, is also a
fan, describing the prince as both charismatic and stylish.
“I really like his dress sense, his clothing. He has a very traditional old
English gentleman’s way of dressing,” Kronthaler said.
“He’d wear jackets with holes in them, that are moth-eaten and that are
sometimes 20 or 30 years old; he gets his stuff mended… I really like
that a
lot.”
Westwood, now 73, was made a dame for services to fashion by Charles’s
mother Queen Elizabeth II, in 2006.
She said her latest collection was partly inspired by the heir’s fondness
for the bespoke tailoring of London’s Savile Row, despite the conservatism
of
that look apparently being at odds with her history of anti-establishment
politics and stunts.
“Savile Row, that is a standard and I’m very glad we’ve got that standard
of dress because otherwise men would look like women, they would just wear
anything,” Westwood said.
“Rules are always very good to break and you can make it very personal
looking with your neck tie and all kinds of choices, with textures and
shirts.
“
“I love the Savile Row look and that’s what he wears. I know he likes
uniforms
as well. But all men don’t stick to that standard terribly well, they
definitely break it.”
Kronthaler described the collection as very British.
“The British love their countryside and they love to pretend, even in the
middle of London, that they’re in the middle of the Highlands — the
gardens,
the stupid big Range Rovers, Wellington boots.
“The message overall is what we’ve been promoting for years: buy less,
chose well, make it last.”
As well as backing Prince Charles’s environmental concerns, the designer
couple are also currently engaged in a fight to protect the last surviving
gorillas in the wilds of Congo.
“People are going in there trying to go for the oil and the shale gas.
There are people there who are trying to defend this park — it’s just
insane
what they’re up to again, some of these big companies,” said Kronthaler.
(Amélie Herenstein, AFP)
Images: Vogue.co.uk