OK, now I’ve had enough. Ever since The Devil Wears Prada, lazy movie producers have tripped over themselves to accommodate the female market by selling movies about high-end designers. If it feels like filmdom caught the fashion bug not long ago, that’s not an error. Since Prada, there have been over twenty fashion-based documentaries alone. And last December, Daniel Day-Lewis used his swan song to horrify audiences with Phantom Thread, a tribute to anal retentiveness and the fashion industry.
Vivienne Westwood is a woman who combines the pale of Mike Pence with the sensibility of an album cover. The film immediately gives her credit for making punk band the Sex Pistols happen, which, in the grand scheme of things, I suppose is better than NOT making the Sex Pistols happen. And then we are introduced to some of the Johnny Rotten-wear designed by Vivienne herself. One shirt ideally suited to fit an adult baboon is on display at a London museum where I’m guessing art goes to die. The white XL garment with XXXXXXL sleeves has “DESTROY” as a header with a picture of a big swastika overlapping an upside-down crucifixion. The shirt is supposed to be a statement to wake us up from societal norms. The thing is …. when you wear a swastika, the statement you’re making is, “I’m a racist.”
This swasti-coup apparently spurred the Westwood label, and before long Vivienne had a little shop devoted to clothes I can’t imagine anyone wearing. On film, Vivienne comes across as a bit of a snob and a bully. This feeling is mirrored in her snooty husband, Andreas Kronthaler. If I didn’t know Andreas was Austrian, I’d swear he was putting on the “Sprockets” accent just for show. Watching these two berate employees on film gives me that same queasy feeling one usually only gets when reading stories about pedophilia.
Carefully crafting her hair with (I’m guessing) the aids of a paint gun and a leaf blower, Vivienne skysprocketed to the top of the fashion world, except, aww, some of her peers thought her designs sucked. I’m no peer, but I’m with them. The film then wanted us to feel the pain and jubilation of spurn and subsequent reward. Considering Vivienne was thisclose to being a baglady, IMHO, I think the film should have left well enough alone. Hey, don’t pull me in to your drama.
Eventually, we do see the activist side of Vivienne Westwood as she visits melting polar bears. This “translates” to her designs in some fashion, if I may use that word. I’m not exactly sure how. It’s very possible I just don’t understand fashion. I mean, I don’t, so there.
Now I’m all for fighting Climate Change, but if you want to wake people up to Global Warming and the destruction of the environment, your business either has to reflect it plainly in policy or design and neither is apparent here to the untrained eye.
Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist tells me that the fashion industry is begging for a This Is Spinal Tap-like send up. The disconnect is right there on the screen in dress after dress after “dress” that I’ve never seen in public. There is a distinct and obvious separation between what shows up on a fashion runway and what people actually wear. Sure, what do I know? I just come from that backwater-drive-thru-Podunk-wasteland called “San Francisco.” I’m sure we’re the very last stop on the planet when it comes to cutting edge art and design. At the end of the day, I didn’t like Vivienne Westwood; I didn’t like her Klaus boytoy; I really dislike her designs, and –for my money- it doesn’t really matter how well or poorly a film is shot/edited when those things are true. To be fair, however, those things weren’t very good, either.
Not sure how one can defend her
When fashion seems to follow a bender
Taste, I might lack
But the shirt on her back
Was clearly designed in a blender
Not Rated, 83 Minutes
Director: Lorna Tucker
Writer: Whoever adds glib to t-shirts
Genre: Here’s another person you’d know better if you could afford her crap
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Vivienne Westwood
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who see fashion as exclusion
