Remembering Dame Vivienne Westwood, designer and activist, died on December 29th 2022 at age 81. “The strength of great characters lies precisely in this, that they do not choose, but wholly and by their nature, they are what they want and do… it is the pride of great characters to be guilty.” Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel The distorted, deformed or rather non-compliant vision is what the mind generates in a motion of creative rebellion that sees no alternatives other than what already exists in itself. That way is common to all creative geniuses who introduce the element that distinguishes them from simple (sometimes excellent) creatives, the novelty. What wasn’t there before now arises as a spontaneous invention and appears as an almost archaic brute force (arché, in ancient Greek ἀρχή, the origin). From here we start with open eyes and we see what was precluded to the right, educated eye. The authenticity of the way is not a formal adaptation to the style, a thought, or a philosophy of life. A pinstripe, an overcheck, a pirate, a kilt, a little dog, Fragonard and the royal globe with the satellite of innovation. The imagination finds its place in the oval horn buttons as if yellowed by time, in the stitching and gathering, in the raw cuts on classic shirts. In that cheeky little girl face who made fun of the politically correct or simply what was shared. She had no time or age because she was a free woman. Always on the move because vividly alive. She makes us remember Chaim Soutine, as in the portraits proposed here, in a vision of beauty that pierces. But it could be El Greco or Van Gogh because the madness of the gaze has no education. Alessandro Turci speaking
