Vivienne Westwood’s 1990s shows are gifts that keep on giving.
to collaborate at Burberry in 2018, and back in 1995 she created a bum bag at the invitation of Louis Vuitton, which was then celebrating the 100th year of its logo monogram. In photographs of her 1990s front rows the likes of Jean Paul Gaultier, Jean-Paul Goude, John Galliano, and Azzedine Alaïa are in the audience.
Westwood helped birth Punk in the 1970s, and by the ’90s she was deep into her study of historical garments. So enchanted was she by the 18th century that her models often were often styled à la française with painted white faces and beauty marks , not to mention heaving bosoms. The designer’s birthday offers the perfect opportunity to stage a mini Westwood-palooza. For the occasion, we’ve digitized five archival 1990s collections, starting with Anglomania, from fall 1993, the show in which Naomi Campbell took the tumble seen around the world. Café Society is like a walk through a museum; the models could have stepped right out of paintings by Chardin, Ingres, and Winterhalter. On Liberty was Westwood’s very own lumps and bumps collection.