Vivienne Westwood — Punk, Historical Dress and the Story of Boudoir

When you explore the past, you enter the future.

— Vivienne Westwood

Bondage straps, tartan and corsets belong to the same house, but they tell different parts of its story. Vivienne Westwood combined provocation with close attention to historical dress. Her perfumes become more intelligible through that wider practice: the relationship between clothing and the body, British tailoring and French ornament, the past and the present.

Her first fragrance, Boudoir, arrived in 1998. In 2025, a new perfume carried its name forward. Both begin with an unusually private setting for a fashion house: the room where clothes come off and a woman encounters herself.

Contents

Basic information
The founder and the origins of the house
The house’s approach to making
References

Basic information

Origins: 1971, with the opening of Let it Rock in London
Founder: Vivienne Westwood; her founding creative collaborator was Malcolm McLaren
Place of origin: London, United Kingdom
First fragrance: Boudoir, 1998
Official website: Vivienne Westwood

The founder and the origins of the house

From dolls’ clothes to primary-school teaching

Born in Derbyshire in 1941, Westwood was the daughter of a factory worker and a cotton weaver. Her family moved to London during her teens. As a child she made dolls’ clothes, yet wanted to become a painter; she had not visited an art gallery before the move.

She left Harrow School of Art after one term, feeling that someone from her working-class background did not belong at college. She subsequently became a primary-school teacher. An interest in making things had preceded any certainty that it could become her profession.

The King’s Road shop and the clothes of punk

Westwood met art student Malcolm McLaren in 1965. More interested in 1950s music and rebellious dress than the prevailing hippie look, she made Teddy Boy clothes for him. In 1971 they opened Let it Rock at 430 King’s Road.

The shop changed with its clothes, becoming SEX in 1974 and Seditionaries in 1976. Bondage straps, zips, safety pins and distressed knitwear moved into street dress. Members of the Sex Pistols, the band associated with McLaren, wore the shop’s designs.

Pirate and the turn towards historical silhouettes

Their first official catwalk collection, Pirate, appeared in 1981. Oversized shirts, sashes and loose trousers looked towards historical dress and portraits of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As punk entered the mainstream, Westwood sought other ways to reshape the dressed body.

She subsequently moved away from working with McLaren, continuing with business support from Carlo D’Amario. Mini-Crini, for spring/summer 1985, shortened the outline of a nineteenth-century crinoline into a bell-shaped skirt. Its fitted silhouette shifted attention towards the hips during an era of exaggerated shoulders.

Behind such theatrical results was a practical engagement with construction:

I always start very practically with the fabrics and the cutting.

— Vivienne Westwood

A creative partnership with Andreas Kronthaler

Andreas Kronthaler met Westwood as a student at the school where she taught in Vienna. He remembered a teacher wearing a kilt, knitted catsuit and large Scottish plaid scarf, whose words opened up another world. He became her partner in work and life.

In 2016, Gold Label became Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood. The change acknowledged an established collaboration. Westwood wanted his contribution to be recognised publicly:

I absolutely wanted his name to be as well-known as mine.

— Vivienne Westwood

From the first Boudoir to the new fragrance

Boudoir launched in 1998, developed with Martin Gras, a perfumer at Dragoco. Westwood described its setting as:

a dressing room and a place to get undressed

— Vivienne Westwood

For her, it was a woman’s space of intimacy with herself, including her faults and possibilities. A house that dressed people for public view had named its first scent after a private room.

Libertine followed in 2000. Mon Boudoir, launched in Japan in 2014, was a separate floral interpretation that retained a link to the original while introducing the freshness of pear and other fruits.

Westwood died on 29 December 2022. In October 2025, Kronthaler’s spring/summer 2026 collection, Boudoir, coincided with a new fragrance of the same name. The 1998 original, its later variations and the 2025 perfume belong to distinct moments in the house’s work.

The house’s approach to making

Reworking tartan and the corset

Historical research led to changes in construction. The Portrait Corset, introduced in Harris Tweed for autumn/winter 1987–88, adapted a historical bodice with stretch side panels and a zip instead of lacing. A garment once concealed under clothing became something to show.

Anglomania, autumn/winter 1993–94, brought British tailoring into dialogue with French couture and clashed different tartans. Westwood worked with Lochcarron of Scotland on her own MacAndreas tartan, named for Kronthaler. History, cloth and a creative partnership met in a single fabric.

The Orb: royal symbolism meets astronomy

The Orb on the perfume cap has a wider history. Westwood’s son Ben lent her astronomy magazines showing Saturn and galaxies. While designing knitwear around royal insignia, she added a Saturn-like ring to the orb from the crown jewels. D’Amario suggested it as her logo; it spread to labels, buttons, jewellery and perfume caps.

The current Boudoir combines a curved clear-glass bottle, pale pink perfume and gold Orb. Its pink box brings together a dancing satyr, a gold Rococo frame and Westwood’s handwritten Boudoir. The perfume’s decoration shares a vocabulary with the house’s clothing and graphics.

Historical perfume and contemporary extraction

The 2025 Boudoir draws on old perfumes at the Osmothèque in Versailles that Westwood loved. Bright bergamot and orange blossom meet Damask rose and carnation, with tobacco leaf and sandalwood surrounding a prominent vanilla accord.

Boudoir is a private, secret space.

— Andreas Kronthaler

Its materials also involve contemporary choices: vanilla extracted with carbon dioxide without heat, and ylang-ylang obtained using solar-powered extraction. The fragrance contains no animal-derived ingredients. Historical inspiration is expressed through present-day materials and techniques.

Boudoir also extends to a candle in a soft lilac ceramic vessel decorated with lipstick kisses. Scent for the body and scent for a private room offer two forms of the same fragrance, connecting its presentation to the idea behind its name.

The house’s current commitment to buying less, choosing well and making things last includes material sourcing, supply-chain traceability and reuse. Its questioning spirit extends from how an object looks to how it is made and kept in use.