Almost four years after Dame Vivienne Westwood’s death, a bitter dispute over her legacy is still unfolding between her family and the fashion label that carries her name.
The long-running conflict could even jeopardise the release of the final collection the punk fashion icon helped create.
Before her death in December 2022, aged 81, Westwood had been developing a new line with her photographer son, Ben Westwood. He now fears the collection may never be released.
‘I was working on this collection with her – her last collection,’ Ben, 63, tells me at the private viewing of Nick Egan’s Live Forever exhibition at Karma Sanctum Soho.
‘But at the moment, it’s all up in the air. There’s one very big hurdle to overcome before I can do anything with it. So maybe it never gets finished – I don’t know. It’s all in limbo.’
At the heart of the court battle are the rights to Dame Vivienne’s iconic orb logo and some of her earliest designs.
The legal fight pits the Vivienne Westwood company against The Vivienne Foundation, the charity of which Ben is a director alongside the designer’s other son, Joseph Corre, her daughter Cara and her widower, Andreas Kronthaler.
Cara has also previously accused the company’s chief executive, Carlo D’Amario, of bullying. Ben, pictured above with his mother in 2019, moved into fashion at 45 after working as an erotic photographer.
Although he has never designed a collection for the Vivienne Westwood label, he launched his own fashion venture, The Ben Westwood Lines, in 2009. His debut collection drew inspiration from tribal culture and pirates.
Vivienne Westwood filed a copyright and intellectual property claim against The Vivienne Foundation last year. The charity, however, says the designer transferred the copyrights to it before her death. The combative spirit of punk appears to be alive and well.
Ben Westwood and Dame Vivienne Westwood attend the British Land Celebration of Design at the House of Commons
There are fears that the collection Ben was developing with his mother may never be released
Ladies of London do not come cheap
When Bravo’s revived reality series Ladies Of London was cancelled after a single season, poor ratings were widely blamed. But cast member Lottie Kane, below, believes the huge salaries of some of her fellow stars may also have played a part.
‘A producer told me it cost a lot of money to make the show,’ Lottie, 35, tells me at a party at Adelphi Art House in London. ‘God knows what they had to pay the Marchioness of Bath [left] to appear on it. Even [former Made In Chelsea star] Mark–Francis Vandelli would have received a very good salary. Unless the viewing figures were sky-high, it was never going to be sustainable.’
Lottie Kane (pictured) suggests the high salaries of some cast members were not sustainable
Helen’s new home is spellbinding
While many people embrace Halloween decorations for just one season, Helen George wants her new home to have a witchy atmosphere all year round. Following a painful split from business leader Dan Innes earlier this year, the 42-year-old Call The Midwife star is starting afresh with her two daughters and plans to style the property after the cult film Practical Magic. She said of the house: ‘I just felt the energy, and it felt right for me and my girls.’
Call The Midwife star Helen George plans to give her new home a year-round witchy feel
Bentley with all-original bodywork
Olivia Bentley is putting her cards on the table when it comes to cosmetic surgery – admitting to a little facial fine-tuning… while insisting her breasts are entirely her own.
‘I’ve never actually had anything done to my body,’ says the Made In Chelsea star, right. ‘I’ve never had a boob job. I don’t tend to wear a bra, so I think when I do wear a bra people think I have had [a boob job].’
Bentley, 31, reveals that her face, however, has had a little tweakment, with her teeth done earlier this year, alongside skin boosters, a touch of filler in her top lip and botox in her jaw.
The reason? So she doesn’t end up with ‘a face like a slapped a***’.
Olivia Bentley has admitted to cosmetic surgery around her face but has denied altering her breasts
Actor James McAvoy is unlikely to be rushing to Buckingham Palace to collect an honour, as it would compromise his working-class principles. The Glasgow-born X-Men star, 47, says: ‘You have to live with yourself. You’ve got to look yourself in the mirror and be cool with yourself. I’m cool with anybody else who makes a different decision. No judgment. But I’d judge myself.’ His ex-wife, actress Anne-Marie Duff, received an OBE last year – so no hard feelings, then!
Prince William’s third cousin Daisy Knatchbull has revealed that her great-grandmother, Edwina Mountbatten, had a glittering – and possibly uncomfortable – secret: A penchant for bejewelled underwear. The fashion designer says the countess had an underwear set ‘made from Cartier jewels’, adding that she was an ‘extraordinary woman who had multiple affairs with multiple wonderful men and women through time’.
