In October 1986, when asked about the plans for her S/S87 collection, Vivienne Westwood told The Face, "I’m using my shop as a crucible. The stuff that’s in there is what will sell elsewhere… It’s kind of market research…" Westwood and her then partner Malcolm McLaren had opened their first Chelsea-based boutique in 1971, and it operated not only as a testing ground for global sales, but as a location of diverse and famed retail incarnations, selling the uniforms of socio-economic…
read more »