Dress

Vivienne Westwood

fall/winter 1994–95 · silk · Costume Institute

Vivienne Westwood’s evening dress made of narrow strips of tulle, appended with a bustle-like padding on the back, was part of her iconic “On Liberty” collection for fall/winter 1994–95, in which she blended her knack for historicism with a caricature of the fashion spectacle, which reached its heights in the 1990s with the supermodel- and logomania. Camping the spectacle and the values of the bourgeoisie, she let a parade of supermodels wear a blend of fur, thongs, bustles and tartans, using notions of bourgeois taste and culture from both the 19th and 20th centuries to subvert the gaudy spectacle of fashion which conflates the female body with branded commodities. A punk at heart, she uses fashion’s seductive tropes to aggrandize its faults, serving up a mirror to the fashion world seasoned with British irony.

Artist

Vivienne Westwood

Date

fall/winter 1994–95

Medium

silk

Culture

British

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Purchase, Gould Family Foundation Gift, in memory of Jo Copeland, 2015