“Punk feels very heroic,” Vivienne Westwood said in 2017. “After I say heroic, I mean to specific individuality. That’s what it’s, to be known in a crowd and forcefully expressing individuality.” There’s little question that the legendary designer, who died yesterday at 81, expressed individuality in every aspect of her life and work. Individuality, provocation and a punk sensibility were the cornerstones of Westwood’s art throughout her five many years in the style industry, as she imbued every part she did with an anti-establishment spirit – even when being honoured with an OBE by the Queen. Never allowing her subversive, rebellious edges to be smoothed down by time, success or the posh of the industry, she continued fighting up until the top, from driving a tank to David Cameron’s house in 2015 to protest fracking to using her runway shows to deliver powerful messages on the climate crisis. 

When it got here to beauty, the audience at a Vivienne Westwood show could expect looks that, whether smeared or pristine, historically-influenced or forward-looking, Pinocchio noses or Kate Moss in an oversized septum ring, were unexpected. Make-up artist Val Garland, a longtime collaborator, described the look as childlike and bonkers. “It all the time appears like [the models] could’ve done it themselves really,” she told AnOther in 2017. “It all the time appears like kids of their mum’s dressing room fidgeting with her lipstick. We’ve got fun with it, we don’t take ourselves too seriously.”

Although she professed to a low-maintenance beauty routine herself – when asked once the key to her youthful appearance Westwood replied, “don’t wash an excessive amount of” –  she was all the time recognisable due to her punk appearance, from the spikey blond hair of the early King’s Road days to the signature electric orange of her later years, the pale skin and charmingly dishevelled make-up. In 2014, at age 72, she shaved her head in an environmental protest, an act that exemplified her political approach to beauty. “I’ve continually tried to impress people into considering afresh and for themselves, to flee their inhibitions and programming,” as she explained within the show notes to the V&A’s 2004 exhibition, Vivienne Westwood: 30 Years in Fashion. 

To mark the passing of Westwood, we revisit a few of her key beauty moments on the runway through the years and listen to from the creative teams behind the looks, in their very own words, the concept, inspirations and what working with the designer was really like.

Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties

In 1981, Westwood and Malcom McLaren staged their first runway show on the Pillar Hall in Olympia for an audience that included Adam Ant and Mick Jagger. Often called the Pirates collection, the unisex offerings were inspired by the garments of highwaymen, dandies, buccaneers and pirates. In these early days, a DIY spirit suffused all facets of the show, and models selected their very own clothes, shoes and their very own mismatched hairstyles. 

By the 90s, the hair and make-up were more skilled, although the names of the team have been lost to time even by Westwood’s own archive team. For the long-lasting SS96 Cafe Society show, models including Kate Moss walked the runway topless eating Magnums with Elizabethan era hairstyles and white powdered faces. Saffron eyeshadow contrasted berry-hued lips, and lots of models also wore fake, dark beauty spots on their cheeks.

“As with the clothing, the identical emphasis on satire and breaking down historical conventions was applied to the hair and make-up,” wrote Kristen Bateman in her retrospective of the show. “By reappropriating the very traditional make-up and hairstyles of the Elizabethan era and placing them on the highest supermodels on the earth through the Nineteen Nineties who for essentially the most part are all wearing provocative clothing, she created something entirely recent and shocking.”

2000s

In 2006, Westwood began working with make-up artist Val Garland who had grow to be a creative provocateur in her own right due to her work with designers like Lee McQueen and John Galliano. It was the start of a years-long collaborative partnership, alongside hair stylist Sam McKnight, although Garland says the primary time they worked together it didn’t go easily.

“Just before the show Vivienne got here along and went, ‘Oh no, no, no that’s far too perfect, no, no, no,’ and form of rubbed a number of the make-up off. She left it a bit mucky and I didn’t think I’d get booked again,” Garland recalled in a 2017 interview for AnOther magazine. “I believed ‘Well she obviously didn’t like what I did, probably since it was too normal, it was too ‘make-up-y’, it was too nice.’” 

Despite that, Garland was booked again and this time she went in with a distinct approach, deciding to be more childlike, painterly and ‘lots rougher’. Westwood loved it. “You understand I all the time walk right into a Westwood fitting and think that if it’s flawed, then it’s probably right, if it looks like, ‘Oh I don’t know if that’s going to work’, then it’s probably the proper thing to do and that’s how I do it.”

An ideal example of the painterly, spontaneous style favoured by Westwood was the AW08 show where the make-up look was that of an eco-hippy stuffed with hand-painted butterflies, swirls and abstract splashes of color. “The make-up looked prefer it had been done by a toddler too, and one with non-too-steady a hand. The audience were clearly baffled – some booed, some applauded,” the Guardian wrote on the time.

2010s

Westwood’s all-time favourite beauty look from her shows got here within the Gold Label SS11 Horses presentation. “The look was incredibly strong, there was one moment when it appeared just like the model had been eating coal. I wasn’t sure if Vivienne was going to just like the make-up,” Garland told Dazed in 2019. With their white painted faces and black across the eyes and lips, the models look variously like they’d been eating coal, had been run over or were in a Kiss tribute band. 

“‘Horses’, she just said, ‘horses’ and I waited, and waited, and waited, and never one other word was uttered and off she went. So I went back to my team and I’m like ‘She just said horses’,” Garland recalled of the concept she was given for the make-up. “I’m like ‘OK, let’s rise up some images of horses, let’s take a look at the markings, let’s take a look at their pelts, let’s take a look at the colouration on their fur,’ and so I said ‘OK, that’s what we’re going to do: we’re only going to make use of one color, it’s going to be black, all of the make-up goes to be black and it’s going to be form of a zebra – which is a type of horse. A zebra type of marking and we’re just going to do different facial markings.’” 

An identical dark, painterly look was used for the Red Label SS14 show where Garland used a feather to use intricate black ink illustrations to the faces of the models, whilst others were smeared in black, blue and red paint. SS15 saw a child-like sensibility, with Kubrick lashes, velvet eyebrows, and red lips described by Isabella Burley as “smudged with lines that seemed to be drawn on by pre-teen girls”, while the following 12 months saw warpaint smeared over the eyes.

For AW19, Westwood turned to Isamaya Ffrench to recreate striking beauty looks that reinforced the message of political protest for the presentation which touched on every part from global warming and sustainability to austerity and Brexit. Models with prosthetic Pinocchio noses shouted messages like “tax the poor and provides to the wealthy, that’s the lie with the long nose”, while others were plastered with brightly colored balloons and faces covered in gold spray paint. Meanwhile, hair courtesy of Gary Gill was wild and untamed.

2020s

For her first show of this decade, Westwood continued to make use of her label as a vehicle for political messages. SS20 eschewed the catwalk and as a substitute showed the gathering digitally with a lookbook and short film through which the designer discusses how rotten financial systems are the source of poverty and climate change.

The gathering itself was inspired by Commedia dell’Arte, the comedy popular in Sixteenth-18th century Italy based on stock characters including Pierrot, a tragic clown, and Harlequin, a comic book servant. It was these theatrical conventions which also informed the sweetness looks masterminded by Ffrench and Alex Brownsell, who took the standard masks as their place to begin.

“It’s all the time very organic when working with Vivienne. We take a look at some references and inspiration images together after which use them to create a search for the models,” said Ffrench in regards to the creative process. “She is so straightforward. We test and we experiment, but Vivienne is all the time very direct and knowing of what she wants. It’s an inventive process that we’re all in a position to share in.”

Brownsell said she was surprised by how involved Westwood was in every little aspect of the gathering and shoot. “I even have huge respect for Vivienne and what she’s achieved in her profession, she is a legend and it’s a tremendous opportunity to have worked together with her.” 

For SS23, the ultimate show under the Vivienne Westwood label before she died, Ffrench and hairstylist Charlie Le Mindu – who yesterday posted in tribute to Westwood a video of the tattoo of her signature he has on his ass – looked to the Nineteen Twenties for inspiration. Slick, almost greasy, finger curls featured heavily for hair, alongside one model who wore a mohawk, while Ffrench used her own brand to dam brows and draw on the thin brows which have made such a comeback this 12 months.