The iconic British designer wants everyone to be an activist by switching to green energy
“I’ve always been an activist; I didn’t consider myself a fashion designer. When I was doing punk, I was just horrified by the way the world is run by such terrible people, people who torture other people, people who create wars. In those days, we didn’t really have a strategy. After meeting Dale Vince of Ecotricity the penny dropped as to what we can do to change things: we can switch to green energy. If we switched to a green economy, it would undermine the power of the rotten financial system. We would pull the carpet out from under the government, and it would have to cut its big business subsidies. Using Ecotricity is the first step forward, and it’s incredible that it’s so easy to do: just pressing a button on the internet. If everybody did it and got ten people to do it, they would really be doing something effective. They would really be an activist.”
Insistently provocative and consistently compelling, Dame Vivienne Westwood incites rebellion against the status quo with a staunch determination – and now, using fashion to champion her political message (one that, in light of the global climate crisis, is invested with a greater urgency than ever), she is commanding that we change our means of consumption in the most literal way. After naming her Autumn/Winter 2017 collection Ecotricity, in honour of entrepreneur Dale Vince’s green energy company (ecotricity.co.uk), she is instructing a direct form of activism that can change the world: switching energy supplier.
Post-production Labyrinth Photographic; Production Mini Title.
This article originally appears in AnOther Magazine S/S17.
