In homage to Vivienne Westwood: The style set's best tartans and checks

London’s sartorial crowd were in mourning last week as Dame Vivienne Westwood – an icon of punk style who entered the scene in the 1970s – was remembered at a memorial held at Southwark Cathedral in South London, having passed away last December at the age of 81.

Westwood’s friends and family filed into the cathedral to the brass notes of ABBA’s ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ (Westwood danced to ABBA at an anti-fracking protest in 2018) wearing emblems of the enigmatic designer’s career. Tartans, corsets, and the iconography of Sex Pistols’ ‘God Save The Queen’ print mixed and mingled in the crowd. With a history of subverting traditional British tailoring and formal dress, including the heritage Scottish costume, her “tartan army” of classic kilts and plaid suits still makes an impact today.

Penning an ode to Westwood, couture collector and lifelong fan Fredrik Robertson wrote: “The legacy she leaves is a mixture of a few different things. It’s the freedom to express yourself and to be who you are, she created a space where there are no rules, and you have a voice. She really was one of the greatest designers of our generation in our time. It’s the loss of something much bigger than just her. It feels like the end of an era.

Below, we celebrate Vivienne Westwood’s lasting impact on our wardrobes with street style's best tartans and checks of recent times.