转录文件 — Vivienne Westwood on human rights and fashion activism（约38分钟）
本地源: 04_视频\B_采访与纪录\04_本人论坛_人权与时尚行动主义\Vivienne Westwood on human rights and fashion activism [LZZZYq5aohY].mp4
转录: faster-whisper base（本地离线，英文语音识别），2026-09-11，SUB-WESTWOOD
识别语言: en (p=1.00) | 音频时长 38.5 分钟 | 处理耗时 2.4 分钟
注: 机器转录，可能有误听；引用站内时以时间戳核对原声为准。

[00:05] I hope that introduction was short enough for you Vivian, I hope that introduction was
[00:09] short enough for you. Thank you the best. You did tell me that you know people were banging
[00:14] on for sort of hours and hours and then you only get two minutes to speak and it's a bit
[00:17] waste of time, isn't it?
[00:21] Then vote for their thing. Alexandra Shulman.
[00:25] It was. Sorry, these microphones have to be very, very, very and you have to bring them
[00:36] really, really close as if you're virtually eating them. So, so you know that I was given
[00:41] my orders before not to not to bang on with huge, critical introductions because Vivian
[00:46] probably gets those wherever she goes. She's very kindly agreed to have a bit of a chat
[00:54] with me about her life and her work and her values and it's really I think the values
[01:00] that we share most in common. She's amongst so many other things. She's a trustee of the
[01:06] civil liberties trust and very proud to say and then towards the end she's going to take
[01:11] some questions from all of you as well because that's the kind of generous person that
[01:16] she is. But Vivian, let's begin, wherever you think this story begins because I know it
[01:23] will matter to people. Your journey will matter, your personal journey will matter to
[01:28] some extent to people. I'm interested in the fact that you were a teacher for nearly
[01:31] ten years before you became a designer. What made you want to be a teacher and then
[01:36] what made you change? I was a teacher for a total of about five years, solid for two and
[01:46] then because I had two children it was often on in between. So, I became a designer because
[01:56] I could make clothes. I'd been making my own clothes as a teenager and I loved going
[02:06] down syndrome making lovely dresses and stuff. I even made suits and I had a very small amount
[02:16] of money. My parents weren't very poor or anything but they gave me less than any of my
[02:22] friends and I've spent my money on shoes and made my own clothes. Anyway, it was Malcolm
[02:29] McLaren, my boyfriend, who had the idea that rock and roll was going to be something that
[02:37] people would be interested in again. When hippies were being, their main power was sort
[02:47] of dwindling a bit. I think hippies were absolutely brilliant and they politicized my generation.
[02:57] Anyway, so it was the idea of rock and roll and we started by going down East End Markets
[03:08] and buying up small, what were the called EPs and LP records, with the idea that we could
[03:15] resell them to 20 people. Then we looked for a stall and we didn't get one but a shop which
[03:24] is 430 Kings Road which is a shop I've still got, it's called World's End now because
[03:31] that's the area of it and it's a good name. Anyway, so we went into the back half of that
[03:41] shop, they weren't doing very well and eventually we took over the whole shop and we saw these
[03:47] and they started to make some of these 50s clothes and that was and then eventually that
[03:55] shop, what happened with that shop is we kept changing the idea instead of doing a fashion
[04:03] show with a new concept. We just changed the shop on the decor and the name and if we put different
[04:12] things in there and eventually we did punk rock, that was in line after about four collections,
[04:21] four different changes to the shop where it kept getting nearer and nearer to something and
[04:28] that something was the idea of an urban gorilla and it was the idea of anarchy and the idea that the
[04:38] world was so mismanaged that we hated the older generation because they weren't doing anything
[04:46] about it and I don't take the older generation now because it's, I've been trying to do something
[04:55] about it all my life, but you just said oh and then we did punk rock because I think young
[05:06] people know less and less and so you know I've got to stop because you fought yourself for
[05:11] facing as always you said oh and then we did punk rock like somebody would say oh and then I had
[05:17] a cup of tea you know punk rock is now regarded as you know a moment of cultural revolution and
[05:26] excitement and genius in the kind of in the cultural history of this country and you just said we
[05:32] just did punk rock but but what was it why that moment and where the inspiration and you described
[05:38] it quite politically but what else was going on that made that happen? Well it was definitely in
[05:47] my case a political motive because as I said the hip is did politicize my generation and we knew
[05:57] that dreadful things were happening and so somehow we just wanted to engage the younger generation and
[06:08] we it was political and maybe I mean I think it's really good but it's a bit silly to think of
[06:17] fashion as a crusade but nevertheless it is something it is culture and it does it is part of of
[06:29] getting a great life you know and I wanted the world to be a better place and when you're a
[06:38] fashion designer you sort of design in a capsule this is how you want people to be like they are at
[06:47] the moment but better anyway and and anyway you've always combined that sort of passion for how
[06:56] you'd like the planet to be with you with your art and and you kind of said again slightly
[07:02] self-effacingly but but fashion isn't a crusade do you how do you feel about say the critics who would
[07:10] say oh well fashion is superficial and I'm not a crusade and and and why should somebody like
[07:17] you know Vivian Westwood who's you know dressing the supermodels on catwalks be someone we should
[07:24] listen to about climate change or civil liberties but what would you say to that kind of criticism?
[07:30] Well I think what I just said about get a life I think it makes you have a better life dress up
[07:39] and stand tall and sick you neck and out and try to express who you are and attract people
[07:49] that I mean and I use my fashion as a excuse a platform to talk politics and I manage to do that
[08:00] for quite a few years because at one time I didn't it was just I was very proud of inventing
[08:09] silhouettes and things that didn't exist before but at one time I decided to put slogans back
[08:15] again into my collections because it's very difficult to give a fashion message political one
[08:23] if you don't use slogans so I started doing that but yeah but it's up to up to people who want to
[08:31] say I mean to me it's not an interesting topic of conversation is it superficial is it isn't I
[08:36] mean it's up to people and my let me just say that my maximum at the moment is because I'm so
[08:47] concerned about climate change is by less choose well make it last I think all this consumption
[08:56] well it is it is superficial and it's not a real choice anyway a real choice is what I've just said
[09:07] you know take your time yeah it's interesting because I mean let's face it for you and unlike you
[09:13] I am not known for my fashion sense and if I'm looking vaguely vaguely okay today it's because I'm
[09:19] head to toe in lab westward right yeah yeah and not always the case I need to you know choose
[09:26] better clearly more often but I do recall that authoritarian regimes throughout history and all
[09:35] over the world try to enforce a uniform on their people try to enforce a uniform so if you think
[09:42] about that if you think about fascist states if you think about you know communist China there
[09:48] was a time when people literally had to all wear the same and wear and wear a little uniform when
[09:52] I reflect on that I don't think that clothing is so superficial anymore as you say it's a very
[09:57] important potentially a very important part of expression and autonomy and and human dignity I think
[10:06] I think but you would you would agree with that now let's talk about your activism because that's
[10:11] what you really want to talk about I mean I think it's true in the case of Maoist China you know
[10:17] that people should all look the same and somehow that would make them ciphers and the individual
[10:27] wasn't important you know and they had to sort of fit in with some sort of plan which as we know
[10:35] turned out to be completely empty people anyway so that's that's true but in earlier on
[10:43] than that there were sanctuary laws where only rich people were allowed to wear certain things
[10:50] and that was a lot to do with trade but it was anyway anyway and close all got handed down to
[11:01] people eventually anyway yeah how important is your is your political activism to you in a sort
[11:10] of in this you know because you're running this business at the end of the day you do have a
[11:14] business and you do have work to do as a designer and people are hungry for your ideas and your
[11:19] products and all the rest of it but on the other hand you are so obviously a political activist
[11:26] particularly on human rights and climate change issues how do you see the balance between the two
[11:31] well sorry but I always I always sort of make an answer bigger than it should be probably
[11:43] and I want to say that culture is really really important and I don't quite know how I wanted to
[11:50] tie that in but I start I cared first of all about suffering and as I've mentioned the phrase
[12:00] the world is completely mismanaged but purposely mismanaged anyway for for the vested interest of
[12:10] a few people and and so so first of all way back this is why I wanted to tie in culture I think it's
[12:21] so important to engage with the past up until the urgent shock of the urgency of doing something
[12:32] about climate change I had looked on the world as must stop suffering must stop war it could be me
[12:42] you know this poor little baby that's just had its arms and legs blown into the sky and it's screaming
[12:48] and with it live them I mean and this little black person who's crawling along the street with a
[12:56] flower trying to see if somebody would buy the flower or help and she can't even walk the most
[13:02] beautiful little thing and the idea of you know people as Shambhi said you know being victims
[13:10] that are just picked on because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and they
[13:16] are then killed or imprisoned in the case of what's happening in America in concrete cells
[13:25] for the rest of their life in solitary confinement I mean 40 years not seeing anybody and you're stuck
[13:33] in there I mean this kind of thing so I always cared about that and culture for me is how did people
[13:43] see the world and that's what it shows you because we've we didn't change cavemen were the same
[13:52] they saw the world according to the circumstances and their environment and culture was the way in
[13:59] which people evolved evolution culture is an evolution of human beings becoming more and more
[14:07] wonderful than they are it's an intellectual evolution of the human race anyway and so and we
[14:16] don't have any much at the moment because people have been trained up to be consumers and that's
[14:22] nothing to do with being engaged with the world at all it's to do with sucking up anyway so these
[14:29] were all my interests until I got the shock I knew that environment was a problem but it's so
[14:39] bad we are in the most incredible danger you know I mean I don't know if this takes too much time
[14:48] to tell but we're listening trust me don't you can hear a pin drop you can you can tell but for
[14:54] example there is a biologist it was quoted in the beginning of known chomsky's book called
[15:04] Survival or headgemony of America that is you know we've got the one or the other where
[15:10] the survive or we have American headgemony you know we don't have any that's the that's the problem
[15:17] and and he's of this he cited a scientist who said that we like we are we've been around for
[15:26] only a hundred thousand years of course there were people two million years ago but
[15:32] they didn't have the the intelligence that we had and the powers of social engagement and
[15:39] everything that we have our character a human being character was a is only a hundred thousand
[15:47] years old and then he said that since the beginning of life on earth there have been a
[15:53] can't remember how many billions of different life forms all of them the average of how long
[16:02] their last is a hundred thousand years and maybe it's our time to go anyway and we're nearly
[16:12] on the point of it we face mass extinction it's being hidden from us because our rulers still
[16:20] pursue their own vested interest they've been trained up to think that the mass of people do not
[16:28] understand what's good for them only they know what's good for them they believe in what they do
[16:34] they believe that to squeeze out all the money from the world and that it ends up in a bank
[16:42] through the process of going through corporations that it will eventually be paid for by the tax
[16:47] payer meanwhile these banks anywhere can talk about I'd like to talk about that formula in a minute
[16:54] but they believe that that is good for the people and they still pursue this trickle-down theory that
[16:59] they know best about and they're completely anti-people and we're not being informed anyway and I
[17:09] would like to tell you how the banking system works just before you did but there's one more thing
[17:14] that I'm sorry as well but I was thinking about the way that you began with saying you know with
[17:20] a sort of little glint in your eye and a smirk on your face that back when we were doing punk we
[17:25] hated old people but I don't hate old people anymore but you you are always still about learning
[17:30] from history and connecting with history and learning from the past and I just wonder what
[17:36] seventy something your old Vivian would say to young punk Vivian now if you had the opportunity to
[17:42] inform that young woman who was doing her work on Kings Road and trying to change the world what
[17:48] what would you say to her now in the light of all this experience that that that came afterwards
[17:53] of culture and activism and and and what happened in the world well I'm going to tell you what
[17:59] what I say to young people who send me I've got to tell you these two things but not not for them
[18:07] but just to remind you one of them is yeah about we've only got 10 years left apparently to do
[18:15] anything and and I'd like to tell you about that plus this banking system but what happens when
[18:23] when people write to me and they say you know like my my daughter or me myself you know I've
[18:30] done everything possible to become a fashion designer I'm now taking these kind of exams and
[18:38] I want to do this and have can I come as an intern and all these things and what I say to them is
[18:47] you cannot be a good fashion designer unless you're interest you have deep interests
[18:55] and in this sense fashion teaching is very very superficial it's all about looking at
[19:03] magazines and getting storyboards and putting your ideas on the on the board and it's all about
[19:11] the idea of the mistake of the 20th century propaganda and and that is that everything comes
[19:25] from you the past is rubbish and though I'm talking about culture that's what makes a fashion
[19:31] designer you have to have ideas where do they come from they come from the past anyway and
[19:39] so what the 20th century did was tell people that the past is is rubbish Henry Ford have two cars
[19:48] history is bunk that was his expression how often do you hear of something being conserved to
[19:55] the dustbin of history can I tell you that the human race has forgotten more than it knows
[20:02] um anyway can I carry on sorry yeah well so so I am so anybody who wants a job in fashion
[20:12] it is what else are you interested in biology do that don't do fashion but if they really have
[20:19] to do fashion then you have to have ideas and you have to know who people are and the genius
[20:27] of the human race and what they were capable of and how people saw the world ten years ago
[20:34] how your mother saw it how your grandma saw it how William Shakespeare saw it you've you've got
[20:40] to know these things how the cavemen saw it everything this is what culture is and um anyway
[20:50] so it's reading going to look at wonderful art you know art it is it is a story without words it's
[20:59] direct experience you you've got the message you've got the beauty you've got the potential of the
[21:07] human race and what it can express it's the poem without words I mean there's so much to discover
[21:16] and so um it if you want to be a fashion designer um then um it's like having a fridge
[21:25] and you've got this food in it but you need to put other food in there everything doesn't come
[21:30] from you you have to get it from somewhere and my motto is you get out what you put in
[21:37] and so it's terribly important um anyway so so that but but I think the over overriding problem is
[21:46] to do with climate change and we should talk about artists as well which we are going to do but yeah
[21:53] you I don't want you to forget you said you wanted to talk about banking yeah you were going
[21:59] to you know share your thoughts on the banking system yes um I'll just quit me to say the other
[22:03] thing as well because I want to take some in it which is that um the hope apparently now that scientists
[22:11] are telling us you know what runaway climate changes it's when everything gets too hot and
[22:19] everything kicks in and you can't stop it and there's been a statistic of two degrees once it
[22:28] goes beyond two degrees we can't stop it it will go to five and if you drew a line parallel with
[22:35] Paris five degrees everything below that is uninhabitable except the Arctic start and Arctic
[22:44] starts to be habitable so goodbye Florence goodbye um well my shock about climate change was when
[22:52] in an interview James Lovelock said that at the end of this century he would guess there would be
[22:59] one billion people left I mean that was is impossible to imagine what happens in between anyway
[23:09] so we're not told about this people are just pretending and you'll never but um if we keep
[23:16] our same political system you'll never deal with this the hope I was telling you is that in 10
[23:24] years we could stop runaway climate change we might be too late it might be already in the
[23:32] pipeline but we've got to behave as if it is possible and so what and if we can reduce emissions by
[23:43] 80 percent my mathematics tells me that we've got to cut our emissions down to a fifth of what
[23:49] they are nobody started and I think you have to start even by saving plastic bags once you start
[23:56] doing something if you give five pounds to a charity whatever it is you start to get engaged
[24:02] and you're without public opinion we've got no chance and I know that politicians aren't listening
[24:09] to people but with enough people talking to each other understanding and getting and caring
[24:16] about these things that is the only possible hope so whatever you do you have to get engaged with
[24:24] things and to me I talked about culture and everything goes together I think going to an art gallery
[24:30] helps climate change for a start it gets you off the consumption treadmill and you start investing
[24:36] in the world anyway so so that's how that links but the the money problem the money system
[24:45] now then a few months ago there was a woman a new whistle blower she's called Karen Hood's
[24:55] she was working 20 years in the world bank and she said I'm going to come out now and explain
[25:02] what's going on and I'm going to get through to people because not only me but a lot of my
[25:08] colleagues and other people are going to help me to get the public to know about this now then what
[25:14] she said isn't no a lot of people did know about this before but she's made it very very clear
[25:22] and what she said is I have she said the world is ruled by an elite now then I don't accept
[25:34] this word elite because you can't have a military elite or an elite is something to be respected
[25:40] not an elite of the rich I mean I don't use this word ever so she said and so I just changed it
[25:48] from the world is ruled by a certain elite to who are our rulers who is it who is ruling us
[25:57] and they are the central banks and out of all the thousands thousands and thousands of course
[26:05] of banks in the world as loads even in your high street but of all the thousands of banks
[26:13] there are 147 which are privately owned the American federal bank is privately owned it's one of them
[26:24] the worst of these banks is in Switzerland in Zurich I can't remember what the name is but it's the
[26:30] central bank of all the private banks and and it was it was done by the Nazis because they
[26:43] were they were laundering money and that's how it was used for but after the second world war what
[26:51] the people in that bank did is they got together with the other private banks and they said our aim
[27:00] is to own everything in the world the banks must own this so the method that they have of doing
[27:09] this is very very simple they print money and we know they don't print it they press buttons
[27:16] okay they press buttons and also I've just seen somebody I know and it put me off for a minute
[27:25] sorry um anyway but but in anyway so I lost my train of thought which is that yeah and so
[27:36] they print money and then they lend it to governments or to corporations shell or whoever it is
[27:47] and what what happens with with that is that the governments then promise to pay them this money back
[27:56] and that money will be and the promise depends on somebody not yet born the future taxpayer the
[28:03] baby that's going to be born in 100 years now because the debt is so big that there's no chance
[28:09] of it ever being paid back however they squeeze all the time if they can because they don't want
[28:17] this difference from the American incredible debt of bankruptcy trillion or whatever it's near
[28:25] they don't want that to look to run away too quickly they're trying to sort of hold it down a bit
[28:32] by what I think they call sovereign money which is money that's real wealth it's real wealth
[28:40] because it's got from mining or potatoes or sometimes services as well um but essentially where
[28:51] that money comes from is from the finite resources of the earth which are exploited and that's how
[28:59] they get the money and their world is is run on debt purposely because every time somebody borrows
[29:07] money the central banks get this interest and they are rolling rich and they are starting to own
[29:14] somehow everything but actually there's no real difference between the money that they print
[29:20] and the money that's even on a power note it's just a promise to pay after all and um and so
[29:27] money is really debt so she's looking to do I just want to give you an example of how this works
[29:38] and then I'll finish in America because the squeeze is bad we shouldn't allow a squeeze
[29:43] we should have a different economy one based on value whereby you pay students to go to school
[29:51] they have their valuable people we need them why shouldn't or more teachers more nurses all
[29:58] services are wonderful these this is real money um because um why should the money only be in
[30:06] these banks or with very rich people why shouldn't real value money be being circulated that's
[30:13] what's good economy when money is being circulated and it's got to be real money that's worth
[30:19] something so what we the way to get out of this is what's good for the economy is sorry what's
[30:27] good for the planet for the climate is good for the economy what's bad for the climate is bad for
[30:34] the economy if we would put this into practice we would automatically get the world we want we
[30:40] would have a beautiful world um I just wanted to give you that one example of a farmer in America
[30:48] who's got a chicken farm or a cow farm or whatever it is there's a total overduction of maize it's
[30:56] and it's all used as sugar in food they have to use this maize which is easy to grow and very
[31:01] profitable and um so what but but that's just one part of it because what the bank what the farmer
[31:10] has to do he's locked into um a big corporation as long as he's got a contract to sell his stuff
[31:19] his chickens whatever to that corporation he can borrow money from the bank and so the chickens
[31:25] are dying the cows are passing on terrible diseases to human beings and they're living in misery
[31:32] born to suffer and um and it's totally uneconomical because the bank the the farmer owns
[31:42] earns 20,000 dollars per year and he owes nearly two million pounds to the bank which he never
[31:50] compares it's just dead the bank might be able to repossess his farm when he's sad enough when
[31:57] hangs himself whatever he's got to do um and or anyway it's just quite content to suck up the
[32:03] interest and that that that that's it but everything is not costed nothing if you can buy a chicken
[32:11] cooked for two pound it's not being costed everything's being subsidized by this debt including
[32:19] fashion but anyway we've got to change things you're speaking so beautifully about our climate
[32:34] future our economic justice future but I want to just touch briefly on human rights before I open
[32:39] it up to the to the floor because we met in 2005 I think um when liberty was campaigning against
[32:47] house arrest without charge or trial and we wrecked a lot of people asking for their support and
[32:52] lots of people signed a petition and it was um it was a high profile campaign sadly not a successful
[33:00] one because we do have um punishment without charge or trial for terror suspects in this country
[33:05] still even under the coalition government but what I found so moving about your response as
[33:11] opposed to lots of people who lent their name and lent their support is that you wrote to me
[33:16] about how you remembered your civics teacher when you were a schoolgirl and how
[33:21] you learned the value of Magna Carta and and people's right to affair trial and then we met
[33:27] and you joined liberty and we became friends and I realized that you'd been actually campaigning
[33:32] against various miscarriages of justice particularly in the United States for for for some years and
[33:38] and now we're looking at um politicians and newspapers who want to scrap the Human Rights Act
[33:44] legal aid that allows people to have advice and representation is all but dead in this country
[33:49] and I wondered if you wanted to finish your vision of what a better future might look like with
[33:54] what you think about human rights. Well as I see it the increased problem that liberty
[34:06] council for civil liberties I call it liberty um has is that um the people accept all these terrible
[34:16] conditions they accept that students are supposed to pay things like that you know with they're
[34:22] not getting the education free you know it's like it's an investment in our future it's people
[34:28] accept the most terrible conditions slowly because governments don't listen to people and slowly
[34:35] they they keep on doing things apart from which people still do kind of believe this thing about
[34:41] we've got to have money all the time and it depends that's anyway whatever sorry um so it's all
[34:49] about what have you got in your pockets and these people are scroungers and all this and we believe
[34:54] all these things and we believe that the government will will will protect us against terrorists
[35:00] and we've got to accept all these things and what has happened is that the laws that have been
[35:07] passed by governments against public opinion but they've passed them anywhere just the same
[35:13] as when Tony Blair went into Iraq against public opinion governments have been doing what they want
[35:20] they're getting really really desperate and they um yeah and so the what liberty has got to fight
[35:32] normally liberty would try to work within the law and say this is not just but when the laws
[35:40] are completely unjust you know and they're totally anti-people then the job of liberty is is much
[35:48] much harder they can say these laws are rotten but no but but the governments won't listen
[35:54] and um so and i do believe that governments are getting more and more desperate because
[36:00] like i said the financial system is crumbling it's crumbling because their their their theory and
[36:08] their thing that they believe in they do believe in in this making profit all the time out of air
[36:16] and out of everything that's in the ground they do believe in this um but um yeah but but the
[36:25] the financial problem and the environmental problem which i've just talked about
[36:32] i like two snakes that each each other's tail the financial crisis is caused by the environmental
[36:40] crisis the environmental crisis is caused by the financial crisis it's getting more and more
[36:48] desperate and i want to end by saying something that j s mill said in a very famous little
[36:58] manual called on liberty in the middle of the 19th century and he ended his book he used the word
[37:06] dwarf i don't think you i don't feel politically correct in using the word dwarf because he talked
[37:13] about dwarfing the intelligence of people um and that with dwarves you can't do very much
[37:20] and the way i would put it is that uh what he said was governments you could do that in the 19th
[37:27] century people weren't as politically correct as we are but um what he was saying is that
[37:33] governments in order to rule more easily will try to limit the intelligence of people
[37:42] and that for whatever good or bad reason they try to do this they will find that people
[37:49] with limited intelligence with with such people not much is possible and we've had propaganda
[37:57] from our newspapers most journalists are there to give us all this distraction every day this
[38:04] total rubbish to make us feel contented we live in the privileged world we're not thinking