From punk rebel to fashion royalty

Adjust font size:

LONDON, England (CNN) -- "Fashion is about sex," Vivienne Westwood once declared. And she would know. From her early creations for Britain's bondage-clad punk scene, to her current high couture cuts, Westwood's clothes ooze sexuality -- and controversy.

Dressing anarchistic rockers the Sex Pistols in clothing emblazoned with pornography and fetishist zippers, outspoken Westwood helped kick-start started the punk movement and launch a career that would also shape the styles of the 1980s and 1990s.

Born Vivienne Swire in 1941, Westwood originally trained and worked as a teacher, before meeting punk godfather Malcolm McLaren, with whom she opened a boutique on King's Road in London's fashionable Chelsea in the early 1970s.

Originally selling 50s rock 'n 'roll memorabilia and records -- a backlash to the hippy movement of the time -- Westwood's outlandish clothes soon began to feature in the shop, which by the late 1970s, was trading under the name "Sex".

With the arrival of the 1980s, Westwood remained ahead of the game. Her first runway show "Pirate" helped crystallize the new romantic style with an androgynous glamour that would even go on to clothe U.S. comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

As the decade ploughed on, the King's Road shop was revamped and re-christened "World's End," -- a name it still carries -- while Westwood, now separated from McLaren, was now dressing the catwalks of Tokyo and Paris.

With her anti-establishment days far behind her, Westwood's clothing adopted more traditional influences, drawing inspiration from the royal family it once mocked and the classical references it once railed against.

In 2004, her career was given the accolade of a major retrospective in London's Victoria and Albert museum. Further recognition came in 2006, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II made the designer a Dames Commander of the British Empire for her services to fashion.

Nevertheless, Westwood has continued to be outspoken. In 2005 she teamed up with a British civil liberties group to protest against heavy-handed policing. She designed a T-shirt for the campaign bearing the slogan: "I am not a terrorist, don't arrest me."

Source: Explosives enough to blow hole in jet Investigators combed through Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's history Sunday in hopes of learning how the British-educated son of a Nigerian bank executive ended ...

---

• Officials: Accused terrorist out of hospital
• Why did checks fail to spot explosives?
• New Detroit scare declared 'non-serious'
• Our favorite Travel Snapshots of 2009
• Hollywood couples who make it work

• Clashes erupt in Iran
• Lebanon blast kills 2 Hamas members
• Report: Missiles kill militants in Pakistan
• 2 dead in series of Massachusetts fires
• Florida's Urban Meyer changes mind