From being prosecuted under Britain's obscenity laws for her risque punk fashions to twirling pantyless after receiving an honor from the Queen whose image she once defaced with safety pins, Vivienne Westwood has always had a habit of causing controversy.
But while she achieved punk icon status through confronting the establishment, her reputation as an influential and highly innovative fashion designer was acquired through exhaustively researched reinterpretations of the corsets and bustle dresses worn by European courtiers from centuries past.
It is a transition that took years of toil to realize, but which has won her enormous respect among the fashion cognoscenti. She is now hailed as a pioneer of subversive fashion who not only looks to the future but also to the past.
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