Fashion designer and punk icon Vivienne Westwood has died at 81

Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, known for popularizing British punk and new wave fashion, died Thursday at age 81.

“Vivienne Westwood died today, peacefully and surrounded by her family, in Clapham, South London,” said a statement from her fashion house shared on Twitter. “The world needs people like Vivienne to make a change for the better.”

Westwood’s work adorned the bodies of numerous celebrities, from the red carpets of Hollywood to the British royal family.

Westwood’s fashion career began in the 1970s with the punk explosion, when her radical approach to urban street style took the world by storm. But she went on to enjoy a long career highlighted by a string of triumphant runway shows in London, Paris, Milan and New York.

In a 2018 review of a Westwood documentary, The Times’ Kenneth Turan described her as “a woman of formidable energy and drive whether she is tearing apart one of her own fashion collections the night before her show or passionately advocating for environmental issues.”

The name Westwood became synonymous with style and attitude even as she shifted focus from year to year. Her range was vast, and her work was never predictable.

As her stature grew, she seemed to transcend fashion, with her designs shown in museum collections around the world. The young woman who had scorned the British establishment eventually became one of its leading lights, and she used her elite position to lobby for environmental reforms even as she kept her hair dyed the bright shade of orange that became her trademark.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.