Vivian Westwood exhibit
Vivienne Westwood is both iconoclast and global icon. In the 1970s, she electrified the world with the launch of punk fashion and went on to become one of the most inventive and influential designers of our time. Fashion to her became "a baby I picked up and never put down." This exhibition , which was organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and which makes the de Young its only U.S. stop on an international tour, celebrates Westwood’s extraordinary, nearly 40-year-long career. Known best for her fearless nonconformity, she also has a profound respect for the past and looks to it for inspiration. With tradition as her springboard, she takes historic garments such as corsets and crinolines and reinvents them in new ways or uses thoroughly British fabrics like tartans and tweeds to create fashion that gently parodies Establishment styles. However outrageous or provocative the result, her approach has always been practical. She is driven by a curiosity about how thin