Martyr To Love Jacket

Vivienne Westwood MAN Autumn-Winter 1996/97 Collection

Complete with silk fabric and glass beads, embroidered by renowned corset-maker, Mr Pearl, this integral corset conforms to the house’s emulation of eighteenth-century dress. Westwood often played with Surrealism. With this piece, we witness a Surrealism of ‘clothing’ through a nude body - in flesh. The art references here adhere to the stylisation of wounds in medieval paintings and inspired the treatment of those marks.

‘The jacket itself is worn over a tight corset, recalling a male 19th century tradition of wearing corsets and foundation garments, to help achieve a figure reminiscent of Classical Greek sculpture. The idea of Classical Greek nudity is one Westwood has alluded to before - most famously with flesh-coloured leggings featuring a mirrored fig-leaf, debuted in her 1989 collection “Voyage to Cythera’. Here, it is the upper body that is clothed to appear naked’ —Alexander Fury.