The Vivienne Westwood Foundation is criticizing the designer’s namesake label’s decision to use archival designs as a reference for its collaboration with Palace.
Palace Skateboards released a collaboration with Vivienne Westwood in September, but according to the foundation, the collection takes inspiration from her archive despite not having the permission to do so.
“In the years before Vivienne died. She set up her Foundation,” reads the statement from the not-for-profit company. “She was so excited about the opportunities that the Foundation could develop and she took so much pleasure in developing her ideas and creations for it. Vivienne transferred all her creative design and property rights to the Foundation including everything she created before she formed the VW company in 1993.”
Westwood, who died at age 81 in 2022, launched the Foundation before her death to “honor, protect and continue the legacy of Vivienne’s creativity and activism.” The foundation also seeks to support charities and organizations with the goal to “halt climate change, stop war, defend human rights and protest capitalism.”
“It is a great shame that for their recent collaboration with Palace, the VW company has decided to base the designs on Vivienne’s archive without consulting the Foundation,” the statement reads. “This shows a blatant disregard for Vivienne’s wishes, her legacy and the Foundation. … We understand that Palace entered into the collaboration with VW company in good faith and they were not aware of this situation. However it is very unfortunate that this has been allowed to happen and we hope that under the circumstances the parties involved will do the right thing, and honour Vivienne’s wishes.”
The collection, much like most of Palace’s high-profile collaborations, sold out quickly and is now only available to purchase through resellers. The Westwood archive served as a major inspiration for some of the collection, per British Vogue. Complex broke down some of the best archival references shortly after the lookbook and the full range was shared online.
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Vivienne Westwood creative director Andreas Kronthaler, who is the late designer’s widower, spoke about the collaboration with Women’s Wear Daily last month. “From the first day I went to Palace years ago, I liked what they are doing,” he said. “Their designs are made with quality, they are accessible and democratic. It felt natural for us to join forces, it was a very playful exercise and it was a pleasure working with the team and making new friends.”
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