The thing that makes my clothes really different is that, number

When Vivienne Westwood declared, “The thing that makes my clothes really different is that, number one, they are really great designs; they're not tacky; they are very professional; the design is made from lots of decisions,” she was speaking not merely of garments, but of the philosophy of creation itself. Her words carry the wisdom of a life lived in rebellion, art, and precision. For Westwood was not just a designer of clothes — she was a weaver of ideas, a shaper of spirit, a sculptor of identity. In her statement lies a principle that transcends fashion: that true design, whether of fabric, art, or life, is born not from impulse, but from intention, discipline, and countless choices made with care.

Westwood came from the fire of punk, yet she rose beyond the noise of anarchy to build a legacy rooted in mastery. When she speaks of her clothes being “professional” and made of “lots of decisions,” she reveals that behind her daring forms and provocative statements lies not chaos, but order — a profound respect for craft. To many, her early designs looked wild, even defiant; but to her, each stitch was deliberate, each cut a conversation between fabric and philosophy. She believed that beauty — real, enduring beauty — demands judgment, not just emotion. In every design, she asked questions of proportion, texture, movement, and meaning, and through those decisions, she created garments that were not only seen but felt.

Her philosophy mirrors that of the ancient masters of creation. Think of Phidias, who carved the Parthenon’s sculptures with divine precision; or Leonardo da Vinci, who said that art is never finished, only abandoned. Like them, Westwood understood that design is a sacred discipline, where every detail carries weight. Nothing in her world was accidental — the curve of a lapel, the clash of tartan and lace, the way a corset revealed not submission but power. When she says her designs are “not tacky,” she means that they are free from laziness — untouched by the cheapness of thought that comes when one creates only to please or sell. For her, tackiness was not a question of taste, but of integrity.

And what is this integrity? It is the courage to decide, again and again, in service of a vision. Westwood’s phrase, “the design is made from lots of decisions,” reveals the unseen labor behind art — the thousand rejections, revisions, and refinements that transform mere fabric into revelation. It is the same spirit that drove Michelangelo, who once said that every block of marble contains a statue within, and the artist’s task is to free it. Each decision is a strike of the chisel, shaping the raw material of possibility into form. So it was with Westwood: behind the glamour of her runway stood the quiet rigor of thought, the endless choosing and un-choosing that turns chaos into clarity.

In her life, she walked the fine line between rebellion and refinement. From the punk movement’s torn shirts and safety pins, she evolved into a designer whose work commanded the respect of royal houses and museums alike. Yet she never abandoned her spirit of questioning. Her designs were acts of resistance against conformity — and yet, paradoxically, they were crafted with the discipline of a scholar. She teaches us that freedom without structure is formless, and creativity without decision is noise. The artist’s duty, she believed, is not to shock the world for attention, but to awaken it with meaning.

In her work we see the eternal dance between chaos and control, between the heart’s fire and the mind’s hand. Westwood’s designs, though born in rebellion, carried the weight of tradition — tailoring, structure, history, and the deliberate artistry of the old masters. She once said that the key to fashion was not novelty, but understanding — to study the past deeply and then transform it. Each of her “decisions” was therefore a dialogue with history, an homage to the world’s beauty reshaped in her own vision. This is why her garments endure: they are not trends, but testaments to the intelligence of art.

And so, O student of craft and of life, let her words guide you: to create greatly is to decide greatly. Do not rush the process of becoming; do not mistake chaos for freedom or imitation for genius. Let every act, every thought, every design you make be the result of choice — conscious, courageous, refined. For in the making of decisions lies the making of destiny. Vivienne Westwood reminds us that the true artist is not one who acts on whim, but one who shapes the world with wisdom, weaving thought into beauty, rebellion into elegance, and life itself into art.