School of Fashion instructor, Rob Curry tells us a tale that involves Vivienne Westwood, Paris, a stag party and a bag piper….
Vivienne’s 1997 Autumn/Winter Collection was entitled “Five Centuries Ago” — with it’s predominant themes being Elizabethan costume as if re-worked by/for S & M sex industry workers and Scottish traditional tartans.
The sales team always arrives first in Paris to set up for the buyers and the studio team follows. I was always the last one to arrive in Paris; being the one with the final few gowns and wedding dress.
The night before the show, the sales team were having drinks somewhere in the Pigalle area (where the Moulin Rouge is) and they came across a very drunk stag party (bachelor party) of Scottish men — one of whom was bare chested, kilted and with bagpipes. The girls from the sales team asked the piper if he’d like to play his bagpipes for a show the next day.
I’ll never forget the look on his face backstage at the show — surrounded by the most famous models in the world (at that time): Helena Christensen, Eva Herzigova, Yasmeen Ghauri, etc. All of them were stripping off their clothes and being squeezed into corsets. It was as though all his birthdays come at once.
And that is how a bare chested, kilted Scottsman came to Paris and ended up — still bare chested and kilted, — on a catwalk with supermodels — and be drawn by Gladys Perint Palmer!
