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“ The femininity in men’s style is what is missing ”
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BEN WESTWOOD loves the outdoors. When not involved in erotic photography, BEN WESTWOOD escapes to the wild to trek and camp. Functionality and tribal desires have persuaded Ben Westwood to start his own collection, incorporating army surplus and spaghetti Western inspiration. Ben met with The Montebury to discuss fetish, punk rock and what it is like to be VIVIENNE WESTWOOD’s son.
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The Montebury — Why is erotic photography so special for you and how did you get into it?
Ben Westwood — I don’t know how I got into it, because it is something I just found myself liking and being attracted to from the moment I saw it. I suppose that I started seeing it during the punk rock times because there was this imagery being used by my mum and Malcolm McLaren on their t-shirts. The reason why it is so important for me is because I find it fascinating and it is my sexuality. The thing with my photography is that I don’t do standard porn or nude so much but it is to do with fetish. Fetish is to do with adding something extra to the body and it is to do with dressing up, dressing up for sex or dressing up sexually. The thing with the photography and fetish outfits is that it really accentuates the female body because you are talking about a woman’s underclothing. These are specifically to enhance sexuality, which I find interesting.
Has it become a personal obsession?
BW — Oh yes. Obsession/interest/passion, whatever. It’s not necessarily a negative thing. Obsession is the wrong word, I would say more passion.
Your brother founded Agent Provocateur. Does this fetish/eroticism run in the family?
BW — Yes, it seems to. But maybe it runs in the general mainstream culture for most people but in our family there was always open contact with it. I was talking with my brother when he opened Agent Provocateur and I said that porn was the new punk rock. We go there because that is where other people don’t want to go but it is so fundamental to human psychology and widely viewed, whether it is supposed to or not. It inspires people to be bad under the establishment rules, breaking up the establishment because you are always stoking something up that is against the standard morals. I think that it is so ridiculous that there is an issue about sexuality in the whole world, because in every culture there seems to be this thing of not letting it out of the bag, otherwise it will ruin civilization and men will go wild.
Do you think that music achieves the same things as it did before?
BW — No. Luckily I have just found some new music that I like. I really like Britney Spears, especially ‘Toxic’ and ‘Womanizer’ because they really push it and the video is really slick. The lyrics are quite dark but punchy. Music-wise, punk rock is not the only way of doing something but it is about attitude. I don’t listen to many punk rock songs, because I preferred the Rolling Stones in the sixties. There is this need to get more real, to front very logical standards. Society needs a release and at the moment I don’t know whether it is more so now than it was in the past. There is such a thing as authority (or it tries to have authority) and you don’t really know yourself as an adult now.
Do you portray fetish as a strength in your photography or as a weakness?
BW — There is something very unique about the women in my photographs because it is accentuating their difference from society. You have to relate to the mind and the mind also controls your image. It is the same from clothing, you learn a lot about someone’s personality by the way they dress.
What inspired your move into fashion?
BW — Well, I stayed away from it but I have had an interest in clothes. I was interested in fetish photography, which I have pursued for fifteen years. I tried to avoid the natural path, which may be natural for other people but it was not my forte. I learnt how to do it through being around my mother plus I used to do the production, so I learnt how the clothes were made up. I thought that it was time to do other things and not just concentrate on one thing. For the last three or four years I have found other interests to give my life a more rounded feel to it such as going off to the Lake District, camping and things like that. Trekking and camping did inspire an interest in clothing suddenly. I hadn’t been out shopping much in the past ten years but I found a new style. I went into lots of army surplus shops and found hooded mosquito net tops etc. That is actually one idea that I am looking to develop. So, the coat I have designed was designed to be out in the rain.
So, it is an emphasis on functional clothing?
BW — Yes and no. This is not functional, but more tribal. The inspiration seems to be more cowboys and indians and the army. There is this thing of men looking rough and wild and women looking futuristic and slick. It is sort of Tarzan and Jane, I loved the relationship between them. She decides to stay in the jungle and doesn’t want to go back to civilization.
Women are a central part of your photography, so why move into a menswear collection?
BW — I am doing this for myself. I have started off with something to wear myself, but a lot of things I do can be unisex. I always wanted to get a drifter coat, something from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, so I put my energy into that. I find that my creativity is good for one step in front of the other because I didn’t know that I was going to design this coat. I wanted to have a frock coat with a hood, but it didn’t really work so then I had the idea of having a very large collar that turns down and looks like animal skin across the shoulders. I suppose it is the case of having ideas, but I need to be in a working process. I haven’t dived into it in such a thorough way as anyone who is a fashion designer has done. |
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BEN
WESTWOOD —
Fashion’s Tarzan
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“ You have to do what you like yourself because I think you fall down when you start to do things that other people might like ”
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What advice have you had from your mother?
BW — She is leaving me to it but has given me someone I can work with. I know when she likes or dislikes something, because she is very easy to read. She likes these clothes so far. She has talked about buying second-hand waistcoats and jackets because I do some work in a vintage shop, so I can get hold of bits and adapt them. She has been very supportive actually and it is very good that I have access to these facilities. You have to do what you like yourself because I think you fall down when you start to do things that other people might like.
You photograph lots of women. Would you find it easy to sit down and design women’s clothes?
BW — No, it wouldn’t be easy. Ten years ago I did do some lingerie designs that I have since used in some of my pictures. I didn’t follow on with that, but I did seven different pieces of lingerie that I made in normal fabrics such as satins and silks. My mother ended up using them in her fashion collection about ten years ago. The half-cut bra worn on the outside was the bra that I had designed with my girlfriend at the time. I copied some lingerie to get these designs but I did design a cut-sleeve sari top, which did quite well because they were stolen by models.
Is it difficult having Vivienne Westwood as your mother?
BW — I just did an exhibition on the idea of being bound by your parents. The public attach you to your parents all the time. There are pluses and minuses, but I can’t say that it is hard because there are perks to the situation, but these are not monetary. Being the son of Vivienne Westwood, I always feel that people assume that I should be financially viable and supposed to be leading a more glamorous life. Actually, I am the complete opposite, but I grew up like that. My mother did not have any money when we grew up and all of her business and shop came through alternative methods. Those material trappings have not been interesting to my mother, but it was more the intellectual things such as reading books and being artistic.
You all seem very political.
BW — It has been political but I don’t know if politics is the right word. It has been about seeing things quite clearly and using your logic to see discrepancies in how people behave. You then aim at provoking and exposing that. This forces you to see some truth. When they did punk and they put Jesus Christ upside down on a swastika, it was not as though the anti-christ party was in town but it was the fact that that is not what you do in public, then all of a sudden it is in public. You will get a reaction from that and it will make them think. Whether you get an angry reaction or not, it upsets the equilibrium. I have also been weary of the word ‘fashion’ because it is associated with what a large group of people get into to be a large group of people. My idea is that it is individually tailored to you and that you don’t want to be part of a look. My mother always came from the outside in fashion and it seemed that she was in a way not taken seriously for a long time, or else criticised. It wasn’t as though she was a fashion house making lots of money but she was this person making things that nobody dared to wear. I called my last book ‘Fuck Fashion’, which was a slightly double entendre because the models were wearing clothes to be fucked in.
So, you are very serious but quite fake in a way?
BW — Not everything is fake but when you do something for yourself because you are interested and you have your own passion that you are following, then it is real. It is fine for people to follow their own thing even if it doesn’t work out because your personality is an evolving thing as a human being. Ideas do not necessarily come clear cut in books, you have to try half an idea and then try the other half somewhere else. I do not believe in all of this market research to find out what people are into and then use that as a map of what people are thinking, just be honest to yourself and whatever mad idea you want to do, follow it. There is no guarantee of making any money out of this. If you are really desperate, then you are going to have to start copying other people. The whole process of doing something to make money is terribly boring and it is what is wrong with the rest of society. Money is so necessary, and people are migrating to cities where they need more money. It can put you in a box and restrict you and can also twist your own motivations. At the same time, before the city there was the sabre tooth tiger and spear. You had to fight this tiger - it wasn’t fair and it didn’t care if you had a baby somewhere. Every organism has to come to terms with this. You need money to pay people to do things but you can also inspire people to do things, and then they want to help you anyway.
Who do you think your collection appeals to?
BW — My collection is a little bit Barbour, and is a little bit toffy. If someone likes the coat, they like the coat and I am not biased. I started off being more left-wing but as time goes on, you come to realise that the extremes are the same. It is not that I am more middle of the road but a liberal view of stop trying to force your way on everyone else. Let people be who they are and life will be more colourful. Give people their space and you give me my space as well, which is what is important about that view. So no, I have no rules about who should be interested in what I do. I am interested in anyone being interested in what I do. |
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“ My mother always came from the outside in fashion and it seemed that she was in a way not taken seriously for a long time, or else criticised ”
For more information on Ben Westwood, please visit www.benwestwood.co.uk. |
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When you first started to think about your collection, were you tempted to draw links to your photography?
BW — There were, and I think that I have obviously put in ideas of prints but I haven’t used them yet. I haven’t quite found the connection between the two, but I am sure there will be something to do with prints. I have been using natural, earthy colours. I dispute that the army overtones are to to do with control and the army. There are things that I admire about the army, such as the functionality and the discipline. My interest in army clothing is simply to do with the outdoors and outdoor colours, not about control.
What is your favourite piece in the collection?
BW — At the moment, I have done two coats, a jacket and a shirt. I like both of the coats. I have designed something that somebody maybe buys once in their life, it doesn’t have a high turnover. It is the same on the back as the frock coat I designed. I call it the cavalry coat, because it reminded me of the US cavalry. When you have had the collar up and then you turn it down, you get a sort of neckerchief effect, which is even more cavalry.
How would you describe your own personal style?
BW — I remember that the last time I had a style for myself, I had something made up. This was about twenty-five years ago and it was based on Dirty Harry. I had the three-piece suit and sunglasses look. At the moment, my style is rough. It is quite colourful but they are always specific colours. I have got a thing I do with colour in my photography, which is a personal style, and my mother showed me some really good colours. Those colours always tend to be more natural and earthy, such as terra-cotta and ochre. I have hardly worn a suit for ten years, but I have a few of my mother’s and I wear them occasionally. I rarely dress up, but enjoy it more when I do.
Have your perceptions of formality and casual changed?
BW — I don’t dress up but sometimes I make the effort.
What is lacking in menswear at the moment?
BW — The feminine side to masculinity. It is all jeans and trainers, tracksuits or a suit. Flair is around but it is not really mainstream. I was only a kid, but I liked the look of the scene in the seventies. People seemed to look a lot more interesting. There were looks, and I liked grunge for example. That is quite similar to my collection, because it looks worn, it is personal. I think men’s fashion is a bit scared in terms of image. It becomes boring and it all strikes me as a bit drab. I always thought it was good when men wore handkerchiefs on their neck and had their hair long, like The Rolling Stones used to do. The femininity in men’s style is what is missing. Things need to be a bit looser and a little more colourful.
Are there any brands that you really like?
BW — I have never gone off of buying clothes. The one perk of my mother being who she is, is that I get her clothes for free. I also managed to make a few things when I was doing the production. It has all been army surplus and a bit of secondhand things. I did that when I was younger as well and it seems to me that I was interested in dressing up in my twenties and I worked with my mum more and then I stayed out of fashion and looked a bit crap for ages. It has only been in the last three or four years that I have developed another style. I haven’t been out buying any other designer’s clothing and have been more associated with the fetish industry. There is a latex rubber and fetish designer called Atsuko Kudo who I have been very involved with as well as some other fetish designers. Fetish fashions have been more of an interest. I haven’t seen much in men’s fashion in the past ten years.
Where is your collection stocked?
BW — At my brother’s shop, called ‘Child of the Jago’. It is a menswear shop on Great Eastern Street and I have put my clothes in there. I am also intending to sell on the internet. |
— January 2010
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