In British fashion, you can’t move for sustainability as a reference point – not least with Vivienne Westwood, who has used the catwalk to monetise climate change, somehow without losing face.
The good news for fans of her uniquely British eccentricity and famous corset dresses is that her business partner and husband, Andreas Kronthaler, has picked up that baton since taking her place at the helm of this label. And, on a damp Saturday afternoon during Paris fashion week, the Austrian delivered an autumn 2019 collection that was classic Westwood – with a dose of environmental activism.
Of course there were the enormous platforms, the ruched stockings, the bustier dresses. But there was also a message discreetly woven into the fabrics and prints, which were secondhand or carefully sourced.
The show, which took place, inexplicably, in an airless conference room in the Hyatt hotel, opened with a yellow and black skirt suit made from fabric hand-printed in Burkina Faso and some house slippers made in Kronthaler’s home village of Erl. Then came Scottish tweed suits for the women, and oversized coats – inspired both by “Coco Chanel in the fabric” and “American football players” in silhouette – for men. There was a wedding dress for her and one for him: the sense of humour that brought us the chinchilla G-string in 1994 or the penis shoe in 1995 is still there. But they came after a segment of corseted dresses hoiked up so that flashes of bottom spilled over suspenders.
It was not protest-wear as we know it – or as Westwood has previously created. At her most recent London show, she sent models down the catwalk wearing tabards with anti-consumerist and climate change slogans.
“It’s slogan-free, none of that,” said Kronthaler, speaking backstage before the show began. “I don’t want to sound like Vivienne, and I’ve always cared: I’m just not that outspoken. I’m not the man on the barricade.”
Instead he has repurposed items already in existence, such as a coat built from a 19th-century quilt found in a market, and a floral children’s bag turned into a T-shirt: in short, using the past to move into the future. If Westwood tends to deconstruct British history, and latterly has used her platform to proselytise somewhat, then Kronthaler’s approach feels more pragmatic.
Still, it helps to consider why Kronthaler created the collection – “we’re being confronted with a bleak future” – and exactly how staging a catwalk show follows this gesture: “the solution is to reduce, make a smaller collection. There are only so many sweaters you can make.”
Kronthaler describes the Vivienne Westwood show as “a résumé, a ‘who am I, Andreas?’”. It was only in March 2016 that his name was first added to the bill as an acknowledgement of his influence on the label for over 25 years.
Westwood and Kronthaler met in 1989 at the Vienna School of Applied Arts, where she taught as a visiting professor. Kronthaler had created some dresses inspired by the renaissance; Westwood invited him to develop them in London and by 1993 they were married.
Sex and sustainability tend to make curious bedfellows. Still, sex sells and sustainability doesn’t, so why not combine the two? It’s already proved quite lucrative. Before last year, the company had a turnover of £37.5m in the UK.
