Get the Vivienne Westwood aesthetic—the enduring legacy of a fashion icon

Vivienne Westwood’s iconic style is a rebellious mashup of punk, pearls, and pure creativity. Known for breaking the rules and bending expectations, the brand dares designers to do the same. From the gritty to the glamorous, Westwood’s collections explode with bold colors, provocative textures, and audacious statements that redefine what fashion—and design—can be.

A trailblazing designer who put punk on the fashion map, Vivienne Westwood is known as an enduring cultural force. Known for her anarchic spirit and boundary-pushing designs, Westwood shook up the fashion world in the 1970s with her provocative approach, fusing rebellious street style with high fashion. But it wasn’t just about the clothes—her brand became a platform for activism, challenging social norms and environmental issues long before they were mainstream concerns.

Westwood’s brand is iconic because it doesn’t just follow trends; it creates them. From safety pins and tartan to corsetry and pirate-inspired looks, her collections are a wild mix of history, politics, and art, constantly evolving while staying true to its rebellious roots. Today, Vivienne Westwood represents a fearless freedom of expression, inspiring creatives and designers around the world to use fashion as a bold, artistic statement.

Ready to inject that fearless energy into your own projects? From punk to pearls, let’s explore Vivienne Westwood’s most iconic eras complete with color palettes, textures, statement pieces, and fonts inspired by her rebellious spirit.

Vivienne Westwood’s punk legacy began in a boutique bought with her then-beau and partner, Malcolm McLaren, manager of the Sex Pistols. The boutique’s name changed almost on a yearly basis, remade to fit Westwood’s transforming desire and style. With names ranging from “Let it Rock” and “Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die” to the renowned “SEX” and “Seditionaries”, the shop housed biker clothing, spiked stilettos, and suggestive garb.

It became a place where art, music, and fashion played a hand in moving culture into the punk rock era. Westwood pulled from bondage culture and fetishism, feelings of nonconformity and direct action, and DIY creative rebellion to influence what became known as punk rock fashion.

The Vivienne Westwood style of this era was littered with straps, safety pins, slashed cloth, and provocative imagery, and it was all paired with distressed, bunched, risqué fabrics.

Get punk fonts, patterns, and other elements to emulate the Vivienne Westwood punk style:

Vibrantly colorful, awash in patterns, and exceptionally flowy, Westwood’s new collection at London Fashion Week in 1981 was inspired by pirates. The style gained popularity and was dubbed “New Romantic” for its swashbuckling flair and romanticized, nostalgic sense of freedom.

The near-primary palette and sharp, wiggly patterns reflect the energy and whimsy of the style. Westwood doubled down on her success at “SEX” by showcasing buckles and tassels, while adding new elements such as polka dots, luxury-looking fabrics, and a top lip liner. The theatrical nature of the design style was perfect for the musical theater industry, helping the Vivienne Westwood fashion find new audiences.

The creation of Vivienne’s trademark logo and the basis of many of her products, the orb, dates back to the beginning of an unlikely brand partnership between tradition-first Harris Tweed and punk-queen Westwood. Vivienne’s orb is almost an exact replica of the Harris Tweed logo, but with Saturn’s rings added.

In true Vivienne Westwood fashion, she revived the style of an older, established culture and made it her own, co-opting the Harris Tweed logo and bringing her eye to their fabrics. Known for their tweed school coats, Harris Tweed provided the beautiful textures and fabrics, and Westwood provided the ideas. The mix of tradition and innovation is still evident in the Vivienne Westwood brand today:

Elements such as plaid, tartan, fake ermine, and hearts appeared in Harris and Westwood’s work, highlighting a unique style of craft and caricature. Many pieces played off stereotypes of the British upper class and the monarchy, including a tweed crown and green tweed armor. With the move toward fabrics with historical significance in British heritage, the Vivienne Westwood brand took yet another unexpected twist.

Although the Vivienne Westwood Three-Row Pearl Bas-Relief Choker has recently come back into the jewelry limelight, pearls have stood the test of time over and over again. The inarguable destiny of pearls to repeat throughout history is part of what drew Westwood to create her own pearl necklace.

The first designed rendition was the Three-Row Pearl Pearl Drop Choker that debuted in the “Portrait” collection in 1990, a collection inspired by French paintings and 19th century ceramics and furniture. True to her punk roots, Westwood subverted gender norms by having both men and women walk the catwalk in pearls. Even today, pearls remain central to the brand:

The iridescent sheen of the pearls, combined with the jewel-encrusted bas-relief, which was offset in later years by plaid, creates an edgy, high-class vibe. Recreate that in your work using these assets:

Westwood redefined the symbolism of the corset, transforming it from patriarchal confinement to gender-inclusive empowerment. Her corsets marry the themes of punk fashion rebelling against society, sexual freedom, and high-craft artistry with her love of renaissance, romance, and revolution.

Turning underwear into outerwear further solidified her name in fashion, culture, and social history. Her corsets pull from many points in history, but the “Portrait” collection corsets inspired by Boucher’s French Rococo paintings were the beginning of a change in the course of corset design.

By showcasing Boucher’s frivolous and suggestive Daphnis and Chloe painting on her corsets at the forefront of the fashion world stage, Westwood broke the regular constraints of society.

From opening ‘SEX’, a shop dedicated to “turning fetishes into fashion statements”, to protesting at the Paralympics and speaking out about climate change, Vivienne Westwood centered herself and her career around activism, subversion and making a statement. Her demonstrations around mass production, Love the Arctic, and human rights are only a few causes she championed.

Create your own timeless, innovative designs inspired by Vivienne Westwood with assets from Envato. As a fashion designer, artist, and activist, Westwood’s lasting influence on society and style is a wonderful source of inspiration for your own projects.

Want to take the next step and design your own fashion brand? Find some fashion-inspired fall color palettes, get some lookbook designs to showcase your work, and learn from fashion designer Qori B.