A piece of paper displaying bumper-sticker-style eco-slogans greeted guests on their seats at Vivienne Westwood. The same messages ("Act fast, slow down, stop climate change") appeared on the clothes, sometimes pinned to the models' chests as if they were competitors in a running race. This is nothing new for a Westwood show; Dame Viv has been spreading her anti-consumerism and pro-green beliefs via the runway for years. The collection trod mostly familiar ground as well. There were the clingy intarsia knits, the wrapped and draped dresses with odd volumes, the bustiers with the deflated bra cups. The unfinished edges and hems on almost everything reminded you that Westwood did them, if not first, then decades before this season's manifestations. What did stand out, if you looked hard enough, were a few tailored pieces of the sort you might actually see hanging in a department store: not conservative by any stretch of the imagination, but not the kind of thing that's going to get you crazy looks when you walk down the street, either. Westwood, we're told, has a thriving business in clothes like these, but you wouldn't necessarily know it from her runway show.
