Vivienne Westwood's Final Collection Threatened by Family Dispute
A legal battle over the late fashion designer's legacy may prevent her last collection from being released, according to her son.
Nearly four years after the death of Dame Vivienne Westwood, a dispute between her family and the fashion house that bears her name continues to escalate, potentially jeopardizing the release of her final collection.
Ben Westwood, the son of the punk fashion icon, has expressed concerns that the collection he was working on with his mother before her death in December 2022 at the age of 81 may never be released. "I was working on this collection with her – her last collection," Ben, 63, stated. "But at the moment, that's all up in the air. There's one very big hurdle to jump over before I can do anything with that at all. So maybe it never gets done, I don't know. It's all in limbo."
The ongoing legal feud centers on the rights to Westwood's signature orb logo and early designs. The Vivienne Westwood company has filed a copyright and intellectual property claim against The Vivienne Foundation, a charitable foundation of which Ben is a director, alongside Westwood's other son, Joseph Corre, his daughter Cara, and Westwood's widower, Andreas Kronthaler. The foundation, however, maintains that Westwood transferred copyrights to it before her passing.
Cara Westwood previously accused the company's chief executive, Carlo D'Amario, of bullying. Ben Westwood, who transitioned to fashion at age 45 after a career as an erotic photographer, launched his own venture, The Ben Westwood Lines, in 2009, with his initial collection inspired by tribal culture and pirates.
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