Sweater, 1976
Vivienne Westwood (British, born 1941)
Loosely knit mohair with color blocks of blue green, rust, and gray
Gift of Barbara and Gregory Reynolds, 1985 (1985.375.7)
"Bondage" pants, late 1970s
Vivienne Westwood (British, born 1941); Malcolm McLaren (British, born 1946)
Black cotton sateen with two-piece matching black wool over-kilt
Purchase, Richard Martin Bequest, 2003 (2003.479a–c)
Technical Glossary
Vivienne Westwood (British, born 1941)
Loosely knit mohair with color blocks of blue green, rust, and gray
Gift of Barbara and Gregory Reynolds, 1985 (1985.375.7)
"Bondage" pants, late 1970s
Vivienne Westwood (British, born 1941); Malcolm McLaren (British, born 1946)
Black cotton sateen with two-piece matching black wool over-kilt
Purchase, Richard Martin Bequest, 2003 (2003.479a–c)
"Vivienne struck an odd combination of the dominatrix and pantomime principal boy in leather jodhpurs, or tiny leather miniskirt with appliquéd motorcycle badges, a thick American leather jacket, fluffy mohair sweater and little pointy booties. With her spiky, white-peroxided hair and pale skin providing a neutral background for her luscious purple lips, she was simply stunning" (Nils Stevenson, Vacant: A Diary of the Punk Years, 1976–79 [New York, 1999], p. 15).
Common mohair sweaters had been seen everywhere in London since the 1950s, but Westwood made her own version with a looser knit and bolder, asymmetrical color blocks that was decidedly different from the predictable stripes and colors of past decades.
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