Vivienne Westwood’s top ten X-rated moments

These days, it’s nowhere near unusual for a provocative fashion item to go viral online. This past weekend, it was the turn of a gold necklace from Vivienne Westwood’s AW24 jewellery collection, and – shock horror – that necklace had a solid metal dick on the end of it. The appropriately named ‘Penis Pendant Necklace’ was posted by one of those pop culture aggregator accounts on Twitter, supposedly as a bit of Sunday night rage bait, and they got exactly what they were looking for. “What were they thinking,” wrote one bemused user in reference to the metallic member. “Not the neckcockalace,” wrote another. “Vivienne didn’t die for this!” said a third.

It seems that no one wants to work these days, because if those confused X users decided to execute a simple Google search they’d find that X-rated provocation has been at the heart of Westwood’s brand since it was founded in 1971. Throughout the years, the grand dame of British punk has populated her catwalks with naked models, phallic footwear, furry pelvises and more bondage than any man can handle. If, like those on Twitter, you need brushing up on the designer’s contribution to the canon of provocative fashion, than look no further than our list of Vivienne Westwood’s top ten X-rate moments below.

What’s more X-rated than two gay cowboys touching dicks? The image comes courtesy of a t-shirt designed by Westwood and then-partner Malcolm McLaren for their iconic 430 King’s Road boutique SEX, where they also sold all manner of fetishwear to punks, sex workers and the rest of the underground scene. With original 1975 editions selling online for upwards of £3,000, later reissues can still fetch a couple hundred quid, like the one above worn by Noel Gallagher’s ex-wife in the late 90s. At the bottom of the t-shirt, the first cowboy asks “‘Ello Joe been anywhere lately,’ to which the second replies, “Nah it’s all played out Bill. Gettin too straight’.”

When the t-shirt hit shelves in 1975 it caused such a stir that the first man to ever wear it in public was arrested. Remembered by the writer Paul Gorman, the openly gay Alan Jones was taken into custody while walking along Piccadilly in London, the t-shirt was physically removed from his back, and then he was charged with “showing an obscene print in a public place”. The next day, police raided Westwood and McLaren’s boutique, seizing 18 of the t-shirts from the pair.

By 1976, SEX had been renamed Seditionaries: Clothes for Heroes, but still sold the same kind of X-rated gear it had become known for. For their SS76 collection, Westwood and McLaren created the Bondage Suit, heavily borrowing from BDSM and fetish for its design. The suit featured a crotch that zipped completely open from front to back for easy access, ‘hobble’ straps that bound the legs together, plus straps all over the body for a straitjacket feel. The look was of course a hit in the punk scene, worn by members of the Sex Pistols, and by frequent Westwood models Pamela Rooke and Simon Barker above.

Though two women kissing isn’t exactly groundbreaking, runway stunts like this weren’t all that common, even at the start of the 90s. For her AW90 Portrait Collection, Westwood introduced a classic painting into her work for the first time, plastering François Boucher’s 1743 work “Daphnis and Chloe” on a couple of her iconic Stature of Liberty corsets. The painting – also known as “Shepherd Watching a Sleeping Shepherdess” – is noted for its half-naked figures and erotic charge, and Westwood mirrored this by having the two models plant one on each other as they reached the end of the runway.

Arguably one of the designer’s most important collections, SS94’s hyper-sexual Café Society was inspired by 19th-century French fashion, English couturier Charles Frederick Worth and the paintings of Anthony Van Dyck. For the show, Westwood sent supermodels including Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington down the runway in huge bustles and streams of feathers, but the most enduring image was a half-naked Kate Moss seductively licking an ice-cream as she closed the show. “They just said ‘eat that while you go out with no top on’,” Moss told British Vogue last year, and a fashion moment was born.

The season after, Westwood continued the raciness with her On Liberty show. This collection focused on historical dress like previous ones, but enhanced its sexiness for the modern woman. Westwood sent multiple models down the runway in butt-skimming mini-skirts, spilling out of corsets, or just completely topless. A standout moment, though, came when supermodel Carla Bruni appeared in a calf-length, faux-fur coat, pulling it back at the end of the catwalk to reveal some matching fur bikini bottoms (a merkini, if you will).

Long before the Penis Pendant sent shockwaves through the Twittersphere, Westwood was making the female anatomy into wearable accessories too. Those online outraged by that dick necklace wouldn’t have fared well at the On Liberty show, where Westwood also debuted a Vagina Pendant complete with a gemstone clitoris and full metal bush.

Next up on the calendar was SS95’s Erotic Zones show. As the name would suggest, the collection’s clothes focused on erogenous zones of the human body, with metal cages drawing attention to models’ bums, plus push-up corsets and rounded hip padding featured throughout. However, one not-so-subtle edition to the collection was this pair of black, velvet heels, complete with a ruffed dildo sticking from the toe. The model who wore the shoes also appeared appropriately X-rated, descending the runway in nothing but the heels and a dental floss thong, a huge bouquet of flowers clasped to her front.

Though the designer’s +5° show was a reference to the climate crisis and rising global temperatures, Westwood couldn’t help but inject some of her trademark sex into the AW09 collection. For look number 9, actor and sex symbol Pamela Anderson appeared on the runway in knee-high stocking and an upturned pink tutu, but it was only as she walked by that the audience could see that her arms had been bound completely behind her back by a tie, an obvious nod to the kink codes that have infused the brand since its founding.

Ever the equal opportunist, it wasn’t just the women’s shows that got all the X-rated moments. At Westwood’s SS16 men’s show during Milan Fashion Week, Breaking Bad actor RJ Mitte made his catwalk debut, and the designer kitted him out in a harness-style backpack worn on the front, a pair of breasts printed on its outside. The look was actually a reference to a piece from Westwood and McLaren’s SEX boutique sold in 1976, which printed the same boob pic on the front of a t-shirt for a similar peek-a-boo effect.

Contrary to what the internet may think, the label’s current AW24 collection isn’t the first time Westwood has stuck a penis around a model’s neck. Back in 2016, multiple models in the designer’s men’s show sported chunky, solid Penis Pendants in silver and gold, ones that banged against their bare chests or peaked out from under lapels. More conservative observers might find these kinds of things obscene, but Westwood has always found both humour and subversion in X-rated symbols, themes that have run through her collections since the very beginning. May the dicks, vaginas and gay cowboys continue on forever. Long live Queen Viv!