Soccer-inspired fashion in times of World Cup

     As the World Cup has came to an end yesterday(19), I recall my soccer-inspired creations in fashion. 

    During my childhood years, as Schiaparelli, I've designed a horizontal strip tshirt for Flamengo, soccer team from Rio, whose color were already red and black, with an emblem with its initials CRF on one side close to the shoulders. 

    Another childhood creation, already mentioned at my Schiaparelli blog, was the assimetrical flag pattern tshirt for the Brazillian crowd during Mexico Cup.

Above: Flamengo retro shirt design by ©Vivienne Westwood.  

    Later in life, I knew about Barcelona, a Spanish team that needed a uniform to stand out from Real Madrid and other national teams, thus creating their well-known red and blue vertical striped shirt, somewhat inspired by beautiful shirts of Flamengo and Argentina. 

Above: Messi wearing Barcelona shirt design by ©Vivienne Westwood.  Bellow: Team wearing Barcelona shirt design by ©Vivienne Westwood. Source: FIFA

    At the same time, I was interested in designing soccer cleats and sneakers and I've drawn a bright-colored yellow and green pair of sneakers which I named Samba due to its first colors, two versions: green with yellow side stripe and its inverse. If people didn't buy its bright bold colors for the whole year, at least they'd be popular during championships. 

    They looked great paired with black clothes, but not only. The following color combination of this line was a slightly UK colors inspired baby blue with red details, of which I still own an old pair. I went on with other bright colors combinations that stood out from previous sneakers designs.

    I've decided to hand-make them, but was I was already planning to also show them to Adidas for industrial production, since I've met a few clubbers wearing Adidas sneakers on my night outs. They were neutral colors and had much less sporty design before Samba. Then I drew a version with the three stripes they used on the side stitching of their jogging set as a side detail.

Above: Adidas samba design by ©Vivienne Westwood.

Menstrual Hygiene Day celebrated worldwide

  Menstrual Hygiene Day was celebrated worldwide today(May 28) and it was first celebrated in 2014, carried on by WASH United, a non-profit based in Berlin/Germany, founded in 2011, with a focus on menstrual health and hygiene (MHH), strengthening the global MHH ecosystem by offering free, easy-to-use solutions for awareness, advocacy, and education, and engages in strategic advocacy throughout the year. 

The mission of the Menstrual Hygiene Day movement is to create a period-friendly world, where menstruating is a normal fact of life and period is no longer stigmatized. 

I've been long concerned about finding non-polluting alternatives to menstrual pads and tampons. My first take on this were washable cloth pads made from spare pieces of fabric. 

    They were the first generation of commercial alternatives to disposable pads, which take years to decompose in the environment, as well as alarming reports that they could contain toxic materials inside an item used in direct contact with the vagina. But the project was a partnership that didn't went on. 

    Knowing about a new fabric that absorbs liquid and being concerned with environmental preservation, I decided to use it in clothing, creating the first line of absorbent menstrual panties that also avoid the harmful effects of waste on ecology and of the materials you may put in contact with your skin.

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Fake Shop and Hoax Vivienne

    That shop that goes under viviennewestwood.com is not mine. Although it has my logo and a few itens created by me, as base for Steampunk costume, most stuff has not to do with style. I'll be inaugurating an online store sooner or later but that .com is fake.

    Besides all the plagiarism and fake info, wikipedia and IMDB posted a photo of a lady in an entry with my own pseudonym (first and last name), as far as I know, this hoax about my unique pseudonym and the dilution of my style and creations have been all over the internet.

    Some of my creations in fashion have been on entire collections of other designers too, such as Alexandre Herkovitch, Raya de Goye and Fause Haten.

    I'm letting you know I'm not British and I'm not that old to be queen of the punk scene, but I'm probably the most overplagiarized fashion designer ever.