Vivienne Westwood Says 'Frack Off!' Ahead Of London Fashion Week

The punk icon, 76, is still using her profile as an iconoclastic designer to protest corporate impunity.
British designer Vivienne Westwood, 76, whose boundary-breaking work made her a punk icon in the 1970s.
British designer Vivienne Westwood, 76, whose boundary-breaking work made her a punk icon in the 1970s.
Neil Hall / Reuters

Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood brought models off the catwalk and onto the streets of London in an anti-fracking protest last Thursday.

The punk icon was joined by her son Joe Corre outside the central London offices of British petrochemicals firm Ineos, which is seeking to develop shale-gas projects in the U.K.

The stunt a day before the start of London Fashion Week saw the 76-year-old designer strut along the street wearing a black graphic T-shirt dress emblazoned with the slogan "FRACKING CLIMATE CHAOS".

Models and activists wore similar outfits. "Fracking is over. The people in this country are not going to accept it," Corre said at the event.

Ineos was granted an injunction in 2017 by Britain's high court, preventing anti-fracking protesters from interfering with its operations. Corre told the crowd that activists were "not frightened of" the injunction.

An Ineos spokesperson said that activists' assertions that their legal action had made all protest unlawful in the U.K. was not the case, saying: "Our injunctions prohibit unlawful acts by protesters and in no way impinge on the right to peaceful protest."

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