Punk and New Wave are largely terms used in the music industry to describe album genres and musical styles, but Vivienne Westwood changed all that from around 1971 onwards. Over the course of the next forty plus years she would go on to change the face of fashion, help to popularize the punk movement and establish herself as one the world most highly regarded fashion designers of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Vivienne Westwood was christened Vivienne Swire originally and grew up in a little village in Derbyshire before heading south with her family and spending a term studying fashion at Harrow School of Art. After an early exit from art school she found herself as primary school teacher at a number of school in Brixton, but didnt lose her love of art and fashion, as she made and sold jewelery at Portobello Road Market.