In 2017, over a morning at the Wallace Collection, a place long-loved by both, the couple invited Susannah Frankel to share the history of their personal, political and professional lives – revisit the interview ⬇️
This article is taken from the Autumn/Winter 2017 issue of AnOther Magazine:
As an adolescent, he rejected any such ornamentation. “Then I didn’t like it anymore for over 30 years,” he confirms. “At art school, I thought it was all kitsch rubbish. But as a child my bedroom was full of Klimt posters.”Danaë Receiving the Golden Rain It would be entirely misleading to describe Kronthaler’s, or indeed Westwood’s, work as iconoclastic, although it has erroneously been defined that way. Provocation is clearly a large part of their story, but it is never forced. They evoke extreme emotion – and opinion – but to them that is natural, and indeed important. They also demonstrate great respect for any source of inspiration and for history, however – their own and that of the broader culture.
“It’s really easy with us. We like the same things,” Teller continues. “Vivienne and Andreas have always had this sense of freedom and engagement with whatever we think is best for each scenario. I’m sure if they were starting out they’d have just the same attitude. It’s what it always was, the confidence to do what they believe in without compromising.
Pamela Anderson – a better-known subject who has appeared on more than one occasion – came into the fold when she was asked by Westwood to sign her Free Leonard Peltier petition. Peltier, a Native American, is an activist for the American Indian Movement who was imprisoned for the murder of two FBI agents during a protest siege. Convinced of his innocence, Westwood has campaigned for his release for many years. “Soon after I was invited to a Vivienne Westwood fashion show,” Anderson says.
“By the way,” Westwood chips in, “when he came home from school, if his father wasn’t there, Andreas made armour in his father’s forge, for himself and for his friends.” Her eyes brighten with admiration as she recalls this anecdote. “It was 500 years old,” Westwood recalls, “and what I actually said was to try to make it for a machine industry, because you can make it beautifully by hand but to work out how to make it in an industrial way, how to get that plaquette sewn properly, is more difficult.”
“It’s true what Vivienne says,” Kronthaler agrees. “You don’t have that when you grow up in the countryside. You’re much more fearless.” However establishment punk had become, “The fashion press were really, really slow catching up with Vivienne,” Costiff remembers. “The first time they did was when she did the pirate look [Pirates, Autumn/Winter 1981, was Westwood and McLaren’s first runway show, held at Olympia in West London] and that was because she did a lot of quite frilly shirts that Tatler and Harpers & Queen really loved. They wanted those shirts and then they started to look at her other things.
In 1976, Westwood was photographed in the store with the Sex and Seditionaries shop girls Jordan and Chryssie Hynde, pre-Pretenders. Westwood is wearing stockings, suspenders, elevated platform-soled shoes and a man’s white shirt printed with the French Situationist slogan, Be Reasonable, Demand The Impossible. It would not be unreasonable to argue that this marvellously impertinent sentiment still drives her. Certainly, she is indefatigable.
In 1990, Westwood invited a group of students from the school to see her Portrait collection for Autumn/Winter 1990. From that point on, Kronthaler never really left her side. To begin with he slept beneath the studio, then based in Camden. “There was lots of space and I had a great time,” he says. “I remember I rolled out this fur in the evening and that’s what I slept on.”
“Think of Rei Kawakubo’s revision of punk and plaid,” Menkes says, “and the huge platform shoes, which only came back to fashion life when Naomi Campbell fell off hers. I remember Vivienne, wearing her school-marm face, giving me a lecture about Venice and how the prostitutes wore platform shoes to be seen above the crowd. She was always good at getting sex and spice into her stories.”
“Vivienne’s shows were insane, just sweet anarchy,” Cave remembers, “and to be a part of them, so early in my career, gave me a voice; allowed me to be just the person I wanted to be. She was the ship’s captain, our supreme leader, and we were her godless figureheads, dressed in her crazy, scandalous clothing. I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. They made me.”
Sam McKnight and Val Garland have been responsible for hair and make-up respectively for Vivienne Westwood and Andreas Kronthaler’s shows for more than a decade. Vivienne: “Do you know how I used to make the foam? We had taps with these pink rubber things on the end of them and I used to get the milk and just squirt it with those and then make it hotter afterwards.”The subject moves onto marriage, which they decided on, in the first instance, for practical reasons. Austria was yet to become part of the European Union and they travelled often. There’s a rare pause in conversation and Westwood looks at her husband.
“Vivienne is the only person I listen to… She’ll ask, ‘Is it something you believe in? Or you think is a bit diff erent? Is it something that hasn’t really been seen that way before? Does it follow your instincts? Your beliefs?’” – Andreas Kronthaler “I don’t really use this word very often, but Andreas is just ‘darling’,” Tracey Emin says. “He’s lovely and he loves Vivienne so much. Their relationship is enchanted but also professional. Vivienne told me he came into her life when she was feeling a bit in the doldrums and he really woke everything up in the studio; he woke her up. They work very well together.
“I’ve always been an anchor for him,” she continues. “Like the corset, for example, is an anchor. It’s something to pin him down. One of the first things he did for me was to send trains down the catwalk, great big dresses. And that’s because this corset of mine, this ‘Stature of Liberty’, you could put anything on it and it looked light as air because it held it to your body. It wasn’t hanging off your shoulders or anything.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Ulster Rugby: Grenfell graffiti daubed on Kingspan StadiumKingspan, which holds naming rights at the Ravenhill ground, has faced criticism over the 2017 fire.
Read more »
Ulster Rugby: Grenfell graffiti daubed on Kingspan StadiumKingspan, which holds naming rights at the Ravenhill ground, has faced criticism over the 2017 fire.
Read more »
Derby Museums secures rare gig poster collection from the 1970sA collection of 90 posters from the 1970s and 1980s is acquired by Derby Museums.
Read more »
Hyndburn council changes waste collection rules due to new lawHyndburn council changes waste collection rules across Accrington and surrounding areas
Read more »
Sherwood neighbours say there's 'no excuse' for flytipping amid riseThere has been a decrease in flytipping in most areas despite the introduction of a £20 charge for the collection of bulky waste.
Read more »
Odegaard believes Arsenal can still improve as Gunners cement first place spotArsenal midfielder Matin Odegaard has told talkSPORT that his side can get even better during their Premier League title charge. The Gunners extended their lead at the top of the table courtesy of …
Read more »