Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Free Vivienne Westwood! Free Bradley Manning!!

Michael Dickinson | 09.05.2013 08:08 | Anti-militarism | Culture

"The most important thing is my jewelry, which is a picture of Bradley Manning. I’m here to promote Bradley. He needs public support for what’s going on with secret trials and trying to lock him away. He’s the bravest of the brave."

SHOCKING JEWELRY AT PUNK COUTURE SHOW
SHOCKING JEWELRY AT PUNK COUTURE SHOW




May 6th saw the the most glamourous night of the year for high fashion – the Metropolitan Museum of Art Gala in New York. Since its inauguration in 1948 the swanky annual fete has feature a different theme. This year it was ‘Punk: Chaos to Couture’, and the oohs and ahs of the starstruck crowds and the roll and flash of cameras greeted celebs and society elite as they stepped out of their limos onto the long plush red carpet, dressed in their designer finery.

Most of them weren’t attired in punk regalia. Stars such as Beyonce, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Kardeshian and Gwynneth Paltrow favoured long flowing dresses, lowcut or high, but Madonna in a black page-boy wig didn’t disappoint. Dolled up in a short tartan tunic with a studded leather belt, black suspendered stockings, a crucifix dangled by a chain at her crotch. The appearance of 72 year old Dame Vivienne Westwood, described as the cornerstone, style-wise, of the whole punk movement in London, was eagerly awaited. What amusingly outrageous outfit could she turn up in that might inspire a little of the shock that first greeted her bondage-based creations in the late Seventies? The crowd waited in eager anticipation, sure that now in the second decade of the 21st Century, they were no longer shockable.

But as she stepped from her car onto the carpet, the appearance of orange-haired Ms Westwood drew gasps, pursed lips and frowns, quickly averted gazes and agitated whispers. It wasn’t the long sedate pastel pink and mauve silk gown she was wearing that created the shocked reaction, but the large picture pinned to the breast of her overrobe. It showed a portrait of jailed American military whistle-blower Bradley Manning. In bold capitals the word TRUTH bannered the bottom of the ‘brooch’.

As she proceeded through the evening, responses to the blatantly political badge was mostly embarrassed, but one of the most influential figures in the birth of punk could hardly be ignored. In response to Vogue.com livestream reporter Billy Norwich, who was interviewing the stars about their clothing, Vivienne Westwood said:

“The most important thing is my jewelry, which is a picture of Bradley Manning. I’m here to promote Bradley. He needs public support for what’s going on with secret trials and trying to lock him away. He’s the bravest of the brave, and that’s what I really want to say more than anything. Because punk, when I did punk all those years ago, my motive was the same: Justice, and to try to have a better world. It really was about that. I’ve got different methods nowadays.”

Norwich, looking uncomfortable, tried to wrap up the interview.

“Is that it?” Westwood asked. “Don’t we have more time? I want to say one more thing..” But her mike was pulled and the camera panned over to co-host Hilary Rhoda’s introduction to a video piece on Andrew Bolton, the exhibit’s curator.

Shame on Vogue. And besides, the whole evening was a grotesque wealthy travesty of the punk movement.

Although almost snubbed at the Met Gala, in an interview last month with Style.com Vivienne Westwood was allowed to express her views more freely:

“It’s exactly the same motive that causes me to have this interest (Bradley Manning) as what motivated me for punk. It’s the same thing. Justice. Everybody should have a fair deal; everybody should have the chance to life in this world. If we were evolved as human beings, we would hopefully be able to alleviate suffering in the world. So my motives come from the same cause. I’m not sure if other punks at the time were doing it for the same reasons. A lot of them were doing it to have a great time and look good.”

“The hippies had politicized my generation, and I was so upset with the death, destruction, and corruption in this world. That’s what I wanted to destroy, that’s what it meant to me. At the time, the punk movement was just iconoclastic, but for me it meant more.”

“You’ve got to have ideas. For me, punk lost its interest because it ran out of ideas. It’s about trying to change the world, not just jumping around and spitting. You’ve got to have ideas, which don’t just fall into your lap. You have to get those ideas by studying and understanding the past—by reading, by looking at art from the past. “

“I’ve just been to a see a play about the arrest of Ai Weiwei, and of course I believe that free speech should be not only tolerated but encouraged. People should be free to say what they think. But at the end of the play, he addressed the audience, Brechtian style, and said that people weren’t thinking – meaning the audience – and the whole play had been about people not thinking, but they had swallowed lock, stock, and barrel the iconoclasm and received opinion of the twentieth century. What I felt like saying is, freedom of speech really has no value unless people have something to say. We are dangerously short of culture.”

Viva Vivienne!

FREE BRADLEY MANNING!

Michael Dickinson
- Homepage: http://yabanji.tripod.com/

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. Great article — WISE Up
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech