Personal Wardrobe of the Iconic Late Fashion Designer Vivienne Westwood Goes up for Auction

The personal wardrobe of the late fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, who is credited for introducing punk to fashion and further developing the style, is headed to auction in June.

Christie’s will hold the live sale in London on June 25, while some of the pieces will be available in an online auction from June 14-28, according to a news release from the auction house on Monday.

Andreas Kronthaler, Westwood’s husband and the creative director for her eponymous fashion company, selected the clothing, jewellery, and accessories for the sale, and the auction will benefit charitable organisations The Vivienne Foundation, Amnesty International, and Médecins Sans Frontières.

The more than 200 lots span four decades of Westwood’s fashion, dating to Autumn/Winter 1983-84, which was one of Westwood’s earliest collections. Titled “Witches,” the collection was inspired by witchcraft as well as Keith Haring’s “graphic code of magic symbols,” and the earliest piece being offered from it is a two-piece ensemble made of navy blue serge, according to the release.

“Vivienne Westwood’s sense of activism, art and style is embedded in each and every piece that she created,” said Adrian Hume-Sayer, the head of sale and director of Private & Iconic Collections at Christie’s.

A corset gown of taupe silk taffeta from “Dressed to Scale,” Autumn/Winter 1998-99, will also be included in the sale. The collection “referenced the fashions that were documented by the 18th century satirist James Gillray and were intended to attract as well as provoke thought and debate,” according to Christie’s.

Additionally, a dress with a blue and white striped blouse and a printed propaganda modesty panel and apron is a part of the wardrobe collection. The dress was a part of “Propaganda,” Autumn/Winter 2005-06, Westwood’s “most overtly political show” at the time. It referenced both her punk era and Aldous Huxley’s essay “Propaganda in a Democratic Society,” according to Christie’s.

The wardrobe collection will be publicly exhibited at Christie’s London from June 14-24.

“The pre-sale exhibition and auctions at Christie’s will celebrate her extraordinary vision with a selection of looks that mark significant moments not only in her career, but also in her personal life,” Hume-Sayer said. “This will be a unique opportunity for audiences to encounter both the public and the private world of the great Dame Vivienne Westwood and to raise funds for the causes in which she so ardently believed.”

Westwood died in December 2022 in London at the age of 81.

China’s securities regulator is ramping up support for the country’s embattled equities markets, announcing measures to funnel capital into Chinese stocks.

The aim: to draw in more medium to long-term investment from major funds and insurers and steady the equities market.

The latest round of policy boosts comes as Chinese stocks start the year on a soft note, with investors reluctant to add exposure to the market amid lingering economic woes at home and worries about potential tariffs by U.S. President Trump. Sharply higher tariffs on Chinese exports would threaten what has been one of the sole bright spots for the economy over the past year.

Thursday’s announcement builds on a raft of support from regulators and the central bank, as officials vow to get the economy back on track and markets humming again.

State-owned insurers and mutual funds are expected to play a pivotal role in the process of stabilizing the stock market, financial regulators led by the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Ministry of Finance said at a press briefing.

Insurers will be encouraged to invest 30% of their annual premiums earning from new policies into China’s A-shares market, said Xiao Yuanqi, vice minister at the National Financial Regulatory Administration.

At least 100 billion yuan, equivalent to $13.75 billion, of insurance funds will be invested in stocks in a pilot program in the first six months of the year, the regulators said. Half of that amount is due to be approved before the Lunar New Year holiday starting next week.

China’s central bank chimed in with some support for the stock market too, saying at the press conference that it will continue to lower requirements for companies to get loans for stock buybacks. It will also increase the scale of liquidity tools to support stock buyback “at the proper time.”

That comes after People’s Bank of China in October announced a program aiming to inject around 800 billion yuan into the stock market, including a relending program for financial firms to borrow from the PBOC to acquire shares.

Thursday’s news helped buoy benchmark indexes in mainland China, with insurance stocks leading the gains. The Shanghai Composite Index was up 1.0% at the midday break, extending opening gains. Among insurers, Ping An Insurance advanced 3.1% and China Pacific Insurance added 3.0%.

Kai Wang, Asia equity market strategist at Morningstar, thinks the latest moves could encourage investment in some of China’s bigger listed companies.

“Funds could end up increasing positions towards less volatile, larger domestic companies. This could end up benefiting some of the large-cap names we cover such as [Kweichow] Moutai or high-dividend stocks,” Wang said.

Shares in Moutai, China’s most valuable liquor brand, were last trading flat.

The moves build on past efforts to inject more liquidity into the market and encourage investment flows.

Earlier this month, the country’s securities regulator said it will work with PBOC to enhance the effectiveness of monetary policy tools and strengthen market-stabilization mechanisms. That followed a slew of other measures introduced last year, including the relaxation of investment restrictions to draw in more foreign participation in the A-share market.

So far, the measures have had some positive effects on equities, but analysts say more stimulus is needed to revive investor confidence in the economy.

Prior enthusiasm for support measures has hardly been enduring, with confidence easily shaken by weak economic data or disappointment over a lack of details on stimulus pledges. It remains to be seen how long the latest market cheer will last.

Mainland markets will be closed for the Lunar New Year holiday from Jan. 28 to Feb. 4.

Personal Wardrobe of the Iconic Late Fashion Designer Vivienne Westwood Goes up for Auction

The latest round of policy boosts comes as stocks start the year on a soft note.