Grunge, tartan and a touch of punk, my collection pays tribute to the late fashion icon Vivian Westwood. Strong shapes and textures to create striking looks with soft edges.
Key objectives and inspiration
Grunge, tartan, artful dishevelment, and a touch of punk – my collection Disruptive pays homage to the unforgettable aesthetic of fashion icon, the late Dame Vivienne Westwood. Ever the enemy of conformity, Westwood’s provocative designs were ground-breaking. I have taken inspiration from her dramatic looks to craft a collection of strong, colourful shapes and designs that pop. The hair is a soft and feminine take on Westwood’s punk. Strong shapes and styles blend with a range of textures to create striking looks with soft edges. The looks evoke Westwood’s eclectic, baroque styling, at once intricate and undone. I experimented with colour techniques including balayage, root fades, colour blocking, and non-conventional techniques such as stripes. I kept the feminine theme and applied different styling techniques – a box shape resembling a flat top from the 90s, weaving for texture, curls with different textures seeping through, a soft mullet in shades of pink, and straight shapes with an edge of colour. Fringes are kept cool and edgy with no partings.
Styling
My collection draws on Westwood’s grungy romanticism of the 1990s. Vivienne Westwood was my inspiration during this era; her copper hair and my Irish heritage felt like they collided. Orange is my favourite colour and a wavelength associated with optimism, energy and positivity. It is attention-grabbing and warm, and it pops against cool blues in the collection. Velvet, mesh, and leather were selected to reference 1990s fashion. The makeup is smudged, slept in and inky. It blends rich coffee tones with spidery mascara, set against nude skin and brows. Brown lips and fine brows situate the look firmly within a 1990s nostalgia, while keeping a contemporary feel and not interpreting the styling of the era too literally. The collection draws strongly on Westwood’s concepts as a designer, grounded in her legacy of class, feminism, defiance, and self-expression, brought together in a mixture of ideas and techniques.
Collection: Disruptive
Hair: Ann Marie Young @annmarieyoung.5
Salon: Jingles Hair Design, Hamilton, New Zealand
Photographer and styling: Fiona Quinn @fionaquinnphotographer
Makeup: Chanelee Aldrige @chanelle.aldridge