Vivienne Westwood Objets d'Art and Vertu

Audacious British fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood initially began her career in jewelry, creating necklaces, brooches and other accessories in the early 1960s. Decades later, long after she found herself dressing the Sex Pistols and bridging the gap between music and fashion in a manner that has reverberated throughout the industry for years, Westwood gained recognition for her venturesome work with pearls, upending the legacy of an object that has been synonymous with ladylike elegance since the Tudor period. 

Featuring glass-based Swarovski pearls, Westwood’s Three-Row Bas Relief pearl choker debuted in 1990 and has become a social media star and a favorite of influencers and fashion lovers all over the world.

For someone who regularly swatted away the industry that made her, Westwood certainly knew her way around a garment. And she knew how to provoke. “I don’t follow fashion,” Westwood once told the New York Times. “I’ve never been interested in it.” Collectors are certainly interested in her work, and vintage Vivienne Westwood dresses, handbags, lingerie and jackets have become very desirable over the years.

Westwood was born Vivienne Isabel Swire in a village in Derbyshire, in central England, but moved to London as a teen. In the early 1960s, she met an artist, activist and entrepreneur named Malcolm McLaren. They became involved romantically and she made clothes for him in the style of the Teddy Boys — the city’s music-crazed, occasionally violent teenagers at the time who wore high-waisted trousers and tailored velvet blazers that drew on Edwardian-era fashions.

Westwood and McLaren opened a vintage shop on King’s Road in London in 1971. The flared denim and peasant blouses of the 1960s, then still popular with the “peace and love” set, didn’t hold any weight for Westwood. Instead, she was interested in provocative, edgy apparel. She repaired used clothing and endeavored to create bold new designs from scratch.

Together Westwood and McLaren sold older rock-and-roll records, customized T-shirts with antiestablishment slogans, biker jackets and snug trousers inspired by the Marlon Brando film The Wild One as well as bondage fetish wear. 

In 1981, the couple’s first show marked the debut of their Pirate collection — a swashbuckler-themed line that sprang from Westwood’s research into Indigenous Americans and the “power garments” of the Louis XIV era. Its enduring influence on the world of fashion as well as the theatrical work of designers such as John Galliano and Alexander McQueen is undeniable. For the colorful corsets of her 1990 Portrait collection, Westwood drew on 18th-century oil paintings — her models donned the pearl necklaces that have made a striking comeback in recent years.

The self-taught Westwood enjoyed a rapid ascent in fashion, with British society embracing her looks and Vogue immortalizing them in its glossy pages. She garnered accolades for introducing corsets to the runway and dressed Kate Moss and Helena Bonham Carter. And an original Vivienne Westwood wedding dress is featured in 2008’s Sex and the City film.

The fires of political and environmental activism burned brightly for Westwood: She was a Greenpeace ambassador, having designed the organization’s official “Save the Arctic” logo; her clothing brand is committed to using recycled canvas and other eco-friendly materials in the production process; and in 2020, she protested the extradition of Julian Assange by suspending herself in a bird cage outside London’s Old Bailey court. But she will always be the grande dame of British design.

Find vintage Vivienne Westwood jewelry on 1stDibs.