God! Save Vivienne

Vivienne Westwood - The collection of Romilly McAlpine is the exhibition that is installed in Museum of London till June 25.

Westwood is a fashion queen... And the best: she is rebellious. She has been translating history, art and Britain traditions in an absolute and individual way. She has been rebuilding the English fashion and making influence over designers around the world, since the end of 1970s. Her shows are ironic, clever and shrewd.

The exhibition is a good sample of her work, through the collection of a client. Beyond the famous corselets and really controversies party dresses, the English tartan's costumes are as serious as good humorous, especially the Mini Crini Collection's models (1994) - very short skirts, supplied with little crinolines, which, by the legends, were presented by top models without panties…

The accessories are even more pleasant: heels that made Naomi Campbell to fall down on the catwalk and doesn't be furious, many fake pearls and all sort of inventions with her satellite's logo

In her biography Fashion+Perversity - A life of Vivienne Westwood and the sixties laid bare (Fred Vermorel. Bloomsburry, 1996) there is a sentence especially delicious for us, Brazilians, dated from her good love times with the Sex Pistol manager Malcolm McLaren: "The world without Malcolm would be like the world without Brazil."

And she doesn't stop here. Besides criticizing any fashion mediocrity's attitude, she proclaims: "To read books. This is getting dresses's elegance. Clothes would wear better people who worry about being intelligent."
Pearls to listen, see and wear.

Museum of London - London Wall - London EC2Y 5HN
Fone - 020 7814 5777
Metrô - St. Paul's ou Barbican