Either someone in the Vivienne Westwood household is a huge Hunger Games fan, or Dame Vivienne and Andreas Kronthaler were just feeling the back to basics vibes of this nature-enthused, tree-hugging, outdoors-obsessed season. (Frankly, what are the indoor children of the world going to wear come summer?) For their Spring/Summer 2014 collection, models carrying various types of hunting and farming gear such as a bow and arrows and a shepherdess’ crook were covered in splashes of dirt and wore dresses with bold floral motifs, which were sometimes interrupted by the total opposite in the shape of stripped-down, drapey floor-length numbers, which had an almost heathen priestess quality about them.
If next season’s Vivienne Westwood woman seemed to be more in touch with nature than usual, it was probably because the quest for climate change is taking up most of the designer’s time these days. (As usual, show notes were sacrificed in favour of an activist proclamation to all “dear clothes lovers”.) As is now and then the case with Vivienne Westwood collections, it was at times hard to keep track of what was going on, but when the rather epic soundtrack of fairytale music stroke up a note and a series of evening gowns came out towards the end, you couldn’t help but surrender to Westwood’s natural opulence.
