Punk manifesto’s winning style

With campaigning for the general election now officially in full swing, we’re due to hear the word ‘manifesto’ a lot in the weeks to come. However, one oversized manifesto looks set to be a vote winner amongst the fashion conscious when it comes up for sale at Cotswolds auctioneers Moore Allen & Innocent later this month.

A copy of Opus: Active Resistance to Propaganda, a ‘manifesto’ by fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood, is a 196-page coffee table book – which laid flat would cover the average coffee table – and full of stunning photographs of actors and models wearing haute couture pieces, as well as portraits of Westwood herself. Measuring a whopping 90cms tall by 64cms wide, it weighs a hefty 25kg.

The book is packed full of Dame Vivienne’s thoughts on her pet political causes including environmentalism, disarmament, and social justice. Opus was originally launched at London fashion Week in 2008 as a limited edition of 900, with nine cover designs – by Westwood herself – in a run of 100 each.

Despite retailing at £1,400 a copy, it quickly sold out and became a collectors’ item.

The version going under the hammer at Moore Allen & Innocent in Cirencester on Friday, May 12 is from the Foreign Policy cover print run, and is expected to achieve between £500 and £800.

The red, black and white cover features anti-establishment slogans, and references government-produced populace-controlling drugs in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

Westwood came to public notice when she made clothes for Malcolm McLaren’s boutique in the King’s Road and helping to define the look of punk rock. It was this boutique that also became the launch pad for punk band The Sex Pistols.