Vivienne Westwood: The Personal Collection - Part I

Christie’s is honoured to have been entrusted with Vivienne Westwood: The Personal Collection, which will be offered in two parts across a live auction (Part I) on 25 June, with an online sale (Part II) running alongside from 14–28 June. These landmark sales will raise funds for the causes Dame Vivienne supported throughout her life, with proceeds going to support The Vivienne Foundation, Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières and Greenpeace.

The auctions will offer the personal wardrobe of the late fashion designer and include some of the most important iconic looks that she created and wore during the last four decades of her life – including the dress illustrated above. The wardrobe, which only contains garments, shoes and jewellery by Dame Vivienne Westwood’s eponymously named fashion house, is recognised as historically and culturally significant — the earliest piece included in the sale coming from the Witches collection for autumn/winter 1983/84. The live auction (Part I) on 25 June will also include THE BIG PICTURE – Vivienne’s Playing Cards: Collect the cards. Connect the cards. In 2017, Dame Vivienne designed a pack of playing cards as ‘A Strategy 2 Save the World’ — a blueprint for the preservation of the planet, infused with her rallying cry, ‘Collect the cards. Connect the cards.’ The prints poignantly shed light on pressing issues facing humankind, such as climate change, social inequality and human rights. Shortly before she died, Dame Vivienne selected ten of the most powerful graphics from her 2017 ‘playing cards’ series to be enlarged and set about signing the precious large-scale ‘cards’ on which these designs would be printed posthumously. A project by The Vivienne Foundation, Vivienne’s Playing Cards will be sold to raise funds for Greenpeace in Dame Vivienne’s final act as an environmental campaigner. Proceeds from the sale of her wardrobe will go to support The Vivienne Foundation, Amnesty International and Médecins Sans Frontières.

Recognised as one of the most important British fashion designers of all time, Dame Vivienne used her influence to address some of the gravest issues facing humanity today establishing The Vivienne Foundation to partner with NGOs with similar aims: ‘to create a better society and halt climate change’. In 2011 the ITC (International Trade Centre) invited Westwood to travel to Kenya to see where some of her designs were being made via their Ethical Fashion Initiative which supports 2,600 local artisans. The photograph above shows Westwood shot by Juergen Teller in Nairobi during that trip for the autumn/winter 2011/12 Ethical Fashion Africa collection – the dress she wears will be included in the auction.

Explore Vivienne Westwood: The Personal Collection Part II and find out more about the auction series.

To celebrate this landmark occasion, a special edition catalogue will be published to accompany the auctions. Order your copy of the catalogue now.