Westwood turns catwalk into protest march

Fiery haired Bella mingled with Fashion Week royalty including US Vogue editor Anna Wintour, models Jourdan Dunn and Alexa Chung and singer Ciara who has just been announced as Topshop’s new ambassador.

Doyenne of British fashion, Vivienne Westwood transformed her show at London Fashion Week on 20 September into a protest against climate change and austerity.

Lights dazzled above to ensure all attention was on the bold message and only then, a few minutes later, did the models wearing her Spring/Summer collection come trotting out.

Her protesters brandished their placards outside the show venue and she led them onto the catwalk. “Let’s build demonstrations, ‘” she wrote in her show notes.

“They cause climate change and war… they’re taking us to mass extinction and we have to do something”. Westwood seemed to have in her sights the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, an enthusiastic backer of fracking.

“I have a voice because I’m a well-known fashion designer”, Westwood told the Press Association, “and this gives me the opportunity to open my mouth”. Fetish-inspired accessories, like plastic chokers and crystal body harnesses, kept things interesting.

The star, dressed in a tight black floor-length gown, turned heads as she attended a party Sunday evening for luxury label Louis Vuitton.

Other protest signs targeted the government’s policy of cutting spending in order to reduce Britain’s deficit, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a proposed free-trade deal between the United States and European Union critics fear will favour corporations at public expense. In the past, Burberry design chief Christopher Bailey has shrugged off concerns that such moves will one day make actual fashion shows obsolete – they are still crucial for generating the all-important buzz, he has said.