Vivienne Westwood has built an entire career on youth culture: She and then-husband Malcolm McLaren are responsible for British punk’s classic look, as pioneered by the Sex Pistols, and the designer has been known ever since for her edgy, counterculture-inspired collections. But apparently Westwood has no love for today’s young people. “Now, I don’t put any faith in youth,” she tells The Wall Street Journal in a new interview. “I do to the extent they’re always idealistic, but the last lot of them have been brought up to be heavy consumers.” Meanwhile, although the 70-year-old designer came into her own during that decade, Westwood calls “1970 ‘The Beginning of the Age of Nostalgia'” and claims that punk was “just a marketing opportunity” (a statement that will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with McLaren’s biography).
So, let’s get this straight: Westwood doesn’t care for the youth of today because they were raised on consumerism — a phenomenon that presumably has nothing to do with rich ladies like her transforming teenagers’ street style into garments that sell for five figures a pop. Huh. [via Jezebel]