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Fashion was always a vehicle for expression for Vivienne, who died in December 2022, age 81. What began in the 1970s with spiked hair, “rubberwear for the office,” and T-shirt slogans so provocative that she and her partner, Malcolm McLaren, were prosecuted under the 1959 Obscene Publications Act later morphed with further humor, zest, and creativity. She wore silk dresses that parodied the upper classes, cosplaying as Margaret Thatcher for the cover of Tatler in 1989; spread her 70-year-old naked body resplendent on a silk sofa like Manet’s Olympia for Juergen Teller; spun for the cameras when picking up her OBE while “glamorously” wearing no underwear; and in 2020 dressed as a yellow canary hanging in a cage outside Downing Street to protest Julian Assange’s extradition to the US. “Vivienne started off a punk and ended as a dame, without compromising an inch,” said Helena Bonham Carter at her memorial today.

It was through the language of visual activism that Vivienne and I bonded: The Amazonian-wild-rubber dress was one of a series of our collaborations, which included wearing a recycled-plastic dress to the Oscars and handing out protest cards for climate refugees after I performed a pagan dance for her London show. When we went together to an event with Queen Elizabeth II, she offered me a paper crown to wear. Over the years, we discussed many topics, yet I don’t recall ever discussing fashion.

In the interpretation—fetishization even—of punk, many may have missed that the visual imagery was largely a medium for communicating a deeper philosophical and political message, which was manifest in many other guises throughout her lifetime. “Punk was just a phenomenon,” her friend and collaborator for more than 50 years Gene Krell tells me in his thick Brooklyn accent. “The label changed, but the elements, the ingredients, the commitment remained.”

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