Scarecrow made with bits of driftwood, rope and junk collected from the banks of the river Thames at low tide, just outside the Westwood studio in Battersea.

WORLDS END

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD, BERLIN

2012

In 2012 we were asked to develop a new Worlds End shop, the first in over forty years.

The original Vivienne Westwood boutique ‘Worlds End’ on the Kings Road, London has a special place in the history of British Fashion. In 1970, Vivienne and her then boyfriend Malcolm McLaren moved in, calling the shop ‘Let it Rock’ and selling Teddy Boy clothes and 50s fashion. Each time they designed a new collection they changed the decor and name of the shop until in 1981 they presented their first catwalk show, clothes for Pirates called ‘Worlds End’. Vivienne and Malcolm separated soon after but the shop and brand of clothes keeps the name to this day.

Designed as a crooked old ship with a big clock with thirteen hours spinning madly backwards, the decor hasn’t changed in 40 years but remained a crucible for Vivienne’s ideas, political and cultural, until her death in 2022.

Vivienne believed we are all too dangerously short of culture; trained up as consumers and not thinking: "Get a Life! Stop sucking up; Our motto is You get out what you put in". 

More recently, Climate Change occupied Vivienne’s thoughts, as the most urgent problem the human race has ever faced. She told us: ‘Everything is connected and Climate Change is connected to lack of Culture’  

When relaunching the famous brand in a new shop in Berlin, we sought to discover what Vivienne and her partner Andreas Kronthaler now think of fashion, clothes, how to sell them, people, culture and Berlin, and how this may come together as a shop...

We realised that Pirates and Climate Change are connected: Pirates bring together treasure from around the world, fighting for each piece and holding on till it's worn out or wrested away, echoed in Vivienne's motto: "Buy Less - Choose Well - Make it Last!". It may be a coincidence that while re-use and re-cycling are mantras of environmental activists they have been sung by Pirates for generations.

That's why all the furniture in the shop has had a life before, found from another place, been used for other things and brought together in Berlin, used here till it falls apart or is taken by someone else, such as a chandelier and mannequin made from Thames driftwood and rope.

Some things we couldn’t find, like the wall of mirrors, so it's made by local craftspeople in such a way that one day the panels can be taken down and used as something new, somewhere else. The mirrors have holes cut through the surface so cabinets, rails and clothes can be fixed in and changed around, appearing to float in the middle of the room.