Vivienne Westwood: "Why I do fashion: Destroy the word Conformity!"

Vivienne Westwood was a rebel with a quiet voice, a rebel who didn't need a megaphone to comment on social ills and make herself heard. In the 70s, she put England on the map with her avant-garde fashion and managed - although she positioned herself "anti-establishment" - to become part of the establishment. Yet Vivienne Swire's life did not start off with anything that sounded like a leather jacket and jumping boots, as she first worked as an elementary school teacher to support her family. Only at weekends did she have time to sell her jewellery on London's Portobello Road.

With her first husband, Malcolm McLaren (founder of the "Sex Pistols"), things went quickly, however. She was known for her provocative prints on T-shirts, which she sold in McLaren's store "Let it Rock", became an icon of the punk movement - which eventually earned her the title "Queen of Punk".

Tartans, deconstructed cuts, safety pins and an "orb" as logo

The famous "SEX" store on London's King's Road was the birthplace of the "Sex Pistols". Malcolm McLaren "cast" the other band members from the clientele - from Glen Metlock to Sid Vicious. The partnership of fashion and music had once again created an important pop-cultural moment that cross-fertilised each other.

But punk was no longer what it was known for a decade later. Degenerating as an empty catchphrase that had become overly commercialised, Westwood designed the "Orb" to give her brand a logo. The combination of an orb, a deeply British symbol as it is part of the Crown Jewels, was given the rings of Saturn.

So what Gen Z is wearing around their necks today, with a pearl necklace in the look of dirndl jewellery, is an expression of the connection between different worlds and emblematic of the builder of her own. In 2008, her name catapulted back into the global consciousness with an equally "biedermeier" piece of clothing: The wedding dress in the first "Sex and the City" film.

But Vivienne Westwood was authentic in every phase of her life. Whereas other designers have to worry about every change of target group and style, Westwood walked through these challenges with somnambulistic certainty.

In her last years, she was mainly involved in environmental activism, while she increasingly left the design aegis of her brand to her Tyrolean husband, Andreas Kronthaler.

"I will carry on, with Vivienne in my heart. We worked together until the end and she gave me so many things. Thank you, my darling!" said Andreas Kronthaler in the press release on her passing.

Head Image: Juergen Teller