In 1961 she met Derek Westwood, soon got married and a year later gave birth to Ben. Feeling unfulfilled however, she left her husband in 1965 and moved into a squat with her brother. While there she met a student called “Talcy-Malcy” on account of the talcum powder he applied to his head to disguise his red hair. His real name was Malcolm McLaren. With him she started to develop an embryonic ‘punk’ style. Eventually, by 1972 with their own son in tow, they had scraped together enough money to take over part of a shop in the Kings Road. In 1976 they renamed it from SEX to Seditionaries after they had both been sued for ‘sedition’ for their anti-royalist designs (see photo above with Chrissie Hynde and Jordan Mooney).

In 1976 McLaren was managing the Sex Pistols and while the group were brilliant publicists for the shop, he concentrated on the music business. In his absence it gave her an opportunity to take centre stage, she felt he did not give her the credit she deserved for creating the look of punk, referring to her simply as “my seamstress”. After they parted she created her first collection for London Fashion Week (1981) which she called Pirate. This was in reference to her inspiration from dandy highwaymen, French revolutionaries and the traditional costumes of Native Americans. The collection greatly influenced young British designers such as John Galliano and Alexander McQueen.

But she was not a natural entrepreneur and in 1984 on the brink of bankruptcy she sold some of her company to Carlo D’Amario who became the managing director. Using her supreme design skills he built it into a multi-million pound expanding international brand. 

Westwood continued to live an unpretentious life and for several years stayed in her former council flat in Clapham. She did not own a mobile phone or read newspapers and cadged other people’s cigarettes. In 2006 when she was made a Dame, she decided not to wear knickers and went to Buckingham Palace wearing a pair of silver horns. She died in 2022, aged 81 with an estimated personal wealth of £150 million.

Buy from her online store here.