Emanuela Karastoyanova

British designer Vivian Westwood presented her collection during the fifth week of the Athens Designers Xclusive Week. Westwood’s collection was presented for the first time in Athens during the organized fashion week from April 3-6, in which participated more than 22 designers from Greece and abroad. Even though she could not be present, her show was very successful.

The fashion queen presented her “Anglomania” collection for fall/winter 2009-2010, in which she unites different styles and eras into one elegant mix, which is not kitsch only because it was made by her. Vivid colors and daring patterns decorated the catwalk and the audience was hypnotized and silent as if it were witnessing a theatrical play. Westwood, also famous as being the mother punk-chic, showed many combinations of colors patterns, and accessories, which intertwine the spirit of the past and the present. Some of the materials, which she presented, were clean-cut and simple and others were more daring and impressed by flowers and stripes. The presented designs – widely cut-out tunics, coats, trousers, and the classic dresses, skirts, broken through the prism of avant-garde decorations in the hair of the models. One of the most interesting designs was the one imitating ancient loose magenta Turkish pants, combined with a musketeer hat and gloves with pink and blue feathers. It is exactly this design that represents “Anglomania’s” inspiration from the history and culture of humanity.

As Vivian herself said in her short speech to the public through the screen – if a person wants to become a designer, he needs to study fashion, art and history of human kind. Westwood is certainly an example of this. As a universally developed person, she cannot be put in between any borders and her numerous interests speak of a renaissance person and not of a strict follower of a certain fashion style. Her wide range of interests and inspirations dates back in the past, passing through human history and culture in different eras, and ending with recent provocative celebrities like Pamela Anderson. Except for a creator Vivian is also a political person –she participates in movements for nuclear disarmament and in 2005 she put out a new collection of t-shits, which say “I am no a terrorist, do not arrest me.”