All the pieces of furniture and fittings in the first Worlds End Vivienne Westwood shop in thirty two years have had a life before, found from another place, used for other things and brought together in the shop at Mulackstr 26, Berlin.
While re-use and re-cycling are fundamental mantras of environmental campaigners, they have also been sung by Pirates (an inspirational mainstay for Worlds End clothes) for generations.
Pirates collect treasure from around the world, battling for each piece, and holding on till it's worn out or replaced. Some things we couldn’t find, such as Alice's wall of mirrors, so it's made locally in such a way that it can be taken down and used as something new, somewhere else.
The famous Worlds End Clock from the 1980 Kings Road store is re-born in Berlin as a pendulum: A symbol of the union of mans' activity with the forces of nature. It takes physical human energy to begin moving, but it's the planetary force of gravity that pulls it back again. And why do we wind up the clock? To record time, to set in contrast the actions of past, present and future. So let's stop the pendulum moving for a while, at least until we know what effect our choices will have on the future.
‘Buy Less - Choose Well - Make it Last!’, as Vivienne says.
All the pendula are from a junk shop near our office in Margate, a town situated where the Thames meets the sea. They cast big, motionless shadows on the wall, just next to the boots, hats and scarves. In the shop’s back room a scarecrow made with bits of driftwood, rope and junk collected from the banks of the Thames, just outside the Westwood studio in Battersea, is proudly wearing a Gold Label dress.
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