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Under the shared label World\u2019s End, Westwood and McLaren showed their first notable collection, which they titled\u00a0Pirate<\/em>, in 1981. The partnership wouldn\u2019t last the end of the decade, but Westwood\u2019s impact only continued to grow.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was messianic about punk, seeing if one could put a spoke in the system in some way,\u201d she told\u00a0Time<\/em> magazine. She sold a t-shirt emblazoned with the face of Queen Elizabeth II with a safety pin through her lip, shocking and delighting street style fans. In 1992, the Queen awarded Westwood with the Order of the British Empire for her contributions to fashion. The designer wore a tailored skirt suit to the ceremony, the picture of ladylike composure\u2014until she twirled for photographers and the swirl of her skirt revealed that she was only wearing pantyhose, not underwear, beneath the ensemble.<\/p>\n This content can also be viewed on the site it originates<\/a> from.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n She made her name on creating the wardrobe of the punk community, but later brought her edgy sensibilities to an examination of high-society ladies. The \u201cmini-crini,\u201d an ultra-shortened version of a traditional crinoline, became a signature Westwood silhouette, and she often put her spin on structured tailoring techniques, exposing seams or somehow turning the familiar and genteel on its head to produce a more layered, interesting, and provocative take on the staid fashions.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2006, Westwood was made a Dame for her contributions to British fashion, and she was named British Designer of the Year three times. Her fingerprints can be seen all over pop culture: from the countless celebrities she\u2019s dressed on red carpets, a three-strand pearl necklace so ubiquitous with influencers and notables that it\u2019s been dubbed \u201cthe TikTok necklace,\u201d in the Virgin Atlantic flight attendant uniforms she designed, and even as the designer of the fictional Carrie Bradshaw\u2019s wedding dress (yes, the one topped with the bird-festooned headpiece) in the first\u00a0Sex and the City<\/em> movie, not to mention the countless designers who cite her as an influence.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dedicating one of her 2013 collections to Chelsea Manning,<\/strong> Westwood walked the runway alongside her models all wearing badges bearing Manning\u2019s face and the word \u201ctruth.\u201d In 2020, she\u00a0staged a protest<\/a> outside a London criminal court in support of\u00a0Julian Assange,<\/strong> suspending herself in a birdcage 10 feet off the ground and shouting that she was \u201cthe canary in the coal mine.\u201d She also appeared in support of PETA, as well as many climate-driven causes.<\/p>\n Above all, Westwood believed in the power of expression and intelligence, and viewed fashion as a visual grammar with which to do so. As she once wrote,\u00a0\u201cFashion is life-enhancing and I think it\u2019s a lovely, generous thing to do for other people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nTwitter content<\/h4>\n