Introduction: Fashion Reinvention

Abstract

The fashion industry is changing. Over the last months and years, it has gone through events that have had a profound and probably long-lasting impact: the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and its consequences for energy supplies and trade, the growing awareness of climate change and its impact on consumption habits, to cite but a few. Those events have also shown that fashion is an industry that has an immense capacity to reinvent itself. One of the best examples of reinvention can be found in the personality of the British entrepreneur and designer Vivienne Westwood (1941–2022), who passed while we were proceeding to the very last stages of preparation for this volume. In 1971, Westwood, initially a school teacher, founded with her partner Malcolm McLaren a fashion shop that became known as SEX and was the epicenter for the birth of the punk movement. Westwood proved to be a ground-breaking designer, whose works challenged cultural boundaries and commented on society and politics. She was also a skilled businesswoman and created a brand with great longevity.

Introduction: Fashion Reinvention