Vivienne Westwood’s five favourite books
Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood first came to the public attention when she and her husband at the time, Malcolm McLaren, began selling clothes Westwood made in a shop on King’s Road in London. The shop became known as SEX and saw several seminal UK punk bands drawn to her vision and way of life.
In that light, Westwood was largely responsible for designing the a large element of punk aesthetic, and her influence continues to ring out across the fashion, film and music industries even today. Westwood was also an avid reader and once named her five favourite books, issuing the suggestion that we invest ourselves in the art of reading.
“Reading matters; it’s the most concentrated form of experience we have. Empathy is when you put yourself in somebody else’s shoes,” Westwood once said in 2017 at the Royal Festival Hall in London (per Dazed). “Each story is an individual’s vision of the world. You become that person as you read, get another person’s life as you go along, and gain perspective on the world; you need your human roots: understand the past to understand the present, and by comparison, you will make good decisions for a better world.”
First up for Westwood is The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin. The text was written in the mid-1700s and details the social customs of that time in China. Westwood said of the Chinese classic: “This book is fascinating, profound, exhilarating. It really is a book of life – a Chinese 18th-century classic by Cao Xuequin in five volumes. I read it until I slept whenever I had the time to read it.”
Centuries later, another of Westwood’s favourites was released. The 1965 novel Stoner by John Williams is a campus novel that follows the life of a university lecturer and focuses on his marriage, affair and workplace politics. The novel was released to little reception in the 1960s but gained traction when it was put out again in the 21st century.
Westwood also admires one of the singular greatest novels ever written, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. The 1939 classic tells of the Joad family during the Great Depression, a band of farmers who are driven from the Oklahoma farm by drought and financial ownership changes. It is simply a masterful work, and Westwood certainly thinks so too.
Vivienne Westwood’s five favourite books:
- The Story of the Stone – Cao Xueqin
- Stoner – John Williams
- The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
- Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
- 1984 – George Orwell
Rounding off Westwood’s list of favourite books are two dystopian classics. The first is Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World which sees planet Earth reformed by a hierarchy based on intelligence and features distinct social enterprises such as technological reproduction and conditioning. It is sometimes read alongside Westwood’s final pick.
One of the most famous novels of all time is George Orwell’s 1984, released in 1949. The visionary and prescient work focuses on mass surveillance and how the very concept of truth is at risk because of the way those who disseminate it are wont to behave. The novel rings true today with haunting accuracy.
