Designer Vivienne Westwood talks shoes, fashion, and gives her take on what money is really for.
Gay Byrne is perplexed with Vivienne Westwood’s most recent shoe designs. She reassures him that it is possible to wear them all day, and they are very popular with her customers,
I’d love to put ladies on a pedestal, and once they wear them, they want to carry on wearing them, there’s no better accessory than a pair of high heel shoes.
In her opinion, what are clothes for? Westwood describes an interview she did on Japanese television, where she was asked the same question. Under pressure, she came out with,
Fashion is about eventually being naked.
On the subject of money, she believes that once a person’s primary needs have been taken care of, money can be used towards being able to do something, rather than being an end in itself,
I think there’s only one really legitimate end for money...art and culture are the badge of civilisation, and money, the only legitimate use of it, is to support that.
Asked if she is a pessimist Westwood prefers to see herself as a meliorist. She neither watches television nor owns one,
I think that the greatest evil today is non-stop distraction and I don't have a television...I wouldn't waste my time watching the television.
This episode of ‘The Late Late Show’ was broadcast on 7 May 1993. The presenter is Gay Byrne.
