They don’t call Dame Vivienne Westwood the ‘grandmother of punk fashion’ for nothing.
The 72-year-old fashion icon is raising a lot of eyebrows lately. Westwood has always been risqué, and if you thought age would have settled her down a bit, think again.
Westwood shaved her head recently to draw attention to climate change and the impact it’s having on the planet. “We face mass extinction,” she said. “It’s being hidden from us because our rulers still pursue their own vested interest, they’ve been trained to think that the people do not understand what’s good for them.”
Like her new hairdo, she’s downsizing her massive clothing empire. “I’ve got too much product,” she says. “I’m trying to completely reduce the scale of operation. I’m concentrating on quality, not quantity.”
And without all that hair it was easy to fashion on a shower cap for her latest appearance in a PETA video about the depletion of fresh water due to the meat industry.
“I am an eco-warrior, but I take long showers with a clean conscience because I’m vegetarian,” she says in the video. “By avoiding meat, you do more for the environment than recycling or driving a hybrid car, combined” she explains from underneath a shower head.
The video is being released in advance of the United Nation’s World Water Day on March 22nd. According to PETA, rivers are being diverted for the livestock industry—both to hydrate the animals and grow grains that make up their feed.
The New York Times recently reported that 4 million gallons of fresh water are needed to produce just one ton of beef. In comparison, a ton of vegetables requires only 85,000 gallons of water.
“I don’t hate the older people now — I’m one of them,” says Westwood. “But I’ve been trying to do something to change things all my life.”
Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger
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