Shop Less, Fashion Designer Says
Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood was a woman on a mission at London Fashion Week this year. As she sent a full collection of autumn clothes stomping down the runway, Westwood said she wanted consumers to shop less and invest in quality over quantity.
The theme of the punk fashion designer's Autumn/Winter show during London Fashion Week, featuring nipped-in jackets and plum metallic fabrics, was "Climate Economy"—linking the recession and climate change.
"Climate change is caused by the rotten economic system; the one that causes wealth for just a few people and destroys our natural resources. If we want a better economy, we need to start with the climate," Westwood told CNBC at the Saatchi Art Gallery after her runway show on Sunday.
"Don't buy the latest thing just to have it," Westwood urges in her "Climate Revolution Charter" which she handed out at the show. The same charter also takes aim at economists, putting them at fault for both the recession and climate change.
"Economists treat economics as if it is a pure science divorced from the facts of life. The result of this false accountancy is a wilful confusion under cover of which industry wreaks its havoc scot-free and ignores the human and environmental cost," Westwood said.
