Though she passed away in 2022, Vivienne Westwood has one last gift for us: a brand new run of specially-designed shirts.
The shirts are the first official project from The Vivienne Foundation since her death, and feature a special run of 500 luxury T-shirts designed by the Dame herself – as well as a promo campaign featuring long-standing friends of the brand like Kate Moss, Fontaines D.C. and Westwood’s granddaughter Cora Corré.
“Vivienne worked passionately and relentlessly on her Foundation Fashion collection in the years, weeks and days leading up to her death,” the foundation said in a statement.
“The collection was intended to be the first of many – but it turned out to be her last. It’s extremely rich in both new and iconic graphics and designs. The culmination of a lifetime’s work.”
Her shirts not only feature her hand-drawn branding and signature, but come in four different designs: The Tits, Cowboys, Baby Satyr and Teddy Bear. They all feature a draped neck design that the designer worked on before her death, and are made from organic cotton.
Westwood herself was one of the most iconic designers ever to come out of the UK. Born in 1941, she was hugely influenced by and involved in London’s thriving punk scene.
“I was messianic about punk, seeing if one could put a spoke in the system in some way,” she once said; her clothes boutique, Sex, went onto become a focal meeting place for London’s early punk scene.
Throughout her life, Westwood championed a variety of causes, and after her death on December 29, 2022, her label announced the creation of The Vivienne Foundation, which would further her aim to create a better world.
The shirts will set you back £150, but it’s all for a good cause. Proceeds are set to go to four grassroots charities that are aligned with the foundation’s ideological pillars: Halt Climate Change, Stop War, Defend Human Rights, and Protest Capitalism.
Those charities include Erasing 76 Crimes (which supports LGBTQI+ rights around the world), the Environmental Justice Foundation, Peace Direct (which works to stop global conflict ) and Streets Kitchen. Even the campaign, which was shot by the legendary photographer Nick Knight, was done over Zoom, in keeping with Westwood’s sustainability ethos.
They come in three sizes (small, medium and large) and are available to pre-order at theviviennefoundation.com. Be quick, though: you only have four weeks before orders close.
