Vivienne Westwood by Rankin.

Exhibition review - Vivienne Westwood: The Exhibition at Museums Sheffield: Millennium Gallery until September 21 2008.

Sheffield’s Millennium Galleries plays host to the work of iconic British designer, Vivienne Westwood, this summer, with an exhibition of her clothes on show until September 21. This is the only UK showing, outside of London, of an exhibition spanning 30 years of Westwood’s endlessly inventive career.

Vivienne Westwood is perhaps most famous for her association with punk pioneer Malcolm McLaren and the retrospective begins with her designs for McLaren’s shop, SEX, on London’s King Road.

These outfits, decorated with studs, chains and even chicken bones arranged to spell the word ‘rock’, show how important Westwood was in defining the look of the punk era.

© V&A London

Her DIY attitude to fashion, with clothes haphazardly and often crudely assembled, complemented the chaotic style of bands like The Clash and The Sex Pistols, who McLaren managed. The inclusion of a bondage suit worn by Pistols front man Johnny Rotten reminds us of fashion’s intimate relationship with punk.

30 years of punk has made the look so familiar to us that it has largely lost its confrontational edge, but there are several controversial pieces that remind us how shocking it must have seemed in 1977.

Slogan t-shirts may now be a high street staple but it’s doubtful whether you’d see anything like the ‘Destroy’ T-shirt, emblazoned with a swastika, in your local branch of Miss Selfridge.

The famous shoes that upended Naomi Campbell. © V&A London

Westwood’s influence on punk was undoubtedly huge but these clothes only make up a small section of the exhibition. From the leather and fetish wear we quickly move on to the pirate look (later adopted by Adam Ant) then to outfits influenced by Peruvian national dress.

At times Westwood can seem like a magpie, stealing from any style that takes her fancy but her distinctive take on historical fashions can be highly entertaining. Her mini-crinis, mini versions of the Victorian crinoline decorated with stars and polka dots, are perfect examples of the sense of fun Westwood brings to the act of rummaging in fashion’s archives.

In her 1987 collection, Harris Tweed, Westwood used the upper classes’ favourite fabric to poke fun at British traditions, even including a Harris Tweed crown in her outfit, Bride of Fortune. Later collections included dresses made of extravagantly arranged folds of tartan fabric.

© V&A London

Surprisingly these parodies of British design are far gentler than you would expect from a designer who claims, “the only reason I’m in fashion is to destroy the word conformity.” What separates them from the deliberate shocks of her punk days is, ironically, her obvious love of the fabrics and tailoring she is making fun of. You get the impression that whatever Westwood may think of the Queen she cannot help admiring her sense of style.

Westwood’s outfits are almost always over-the-top and frequently verge on the ridiculous – one of the exhibition’s highlights is the pair of blue mock-croc platform shoes, with towering nine inch heels, that famously caused Naomi Campbell to take a tumble on the catwalk.

Yet the fact that she clearly intends her clothes, however bizarre, to be worn in the real world and not just on the catwalk, stops them from becoming just one long joke.

Photographer unknown, courtesy Vivienne Westwood Ltd.

Talking about her early punk style Westwood has said: “All the clothes I wore people would regard as shocking. I wore them because I just thought I looked like a princess from another planet.”

Her career has been built on combining the outlandish with the glamorous, and she is passionately sincere about her unique vision of what is beautiful. For all her playfulness, Vivienne Westwood isn’t interested in being ironic and her faith in her own clothes, even the most bizarre, is oddly endearing.

Visitors who are curious about Westwood but only mildly interested in fashion may find the collection, which contains over 150 designs and covers all aspects of her career, a little overwhelming. But the exhibition, curated by the Victoria and Albert Museum, works hard at being understated.

© V&A London

The black walls are a concession to her punk origins but the background music foregoes The Sex Pistols for a classical soundtrack and the outfits are arranged fairly conservatively. Instead the clothes are left to make their own statements and the bold, innovative designs on display mark Vivienne Westwood as a true fashion original.