Unseen Vivienne Westwood photos show 'born protester'

From Alan Bennett to Sir Alex Ferguson, Betty Boothroyd to Bez and Fred Dibnah to Iain Duncan Smith, Paul Wolfgang Webster has photographed a wide range of well-known faces across his decades-long career, but one eluded him.

As a punk, he always wanted to capture an icon of the scene, Dame Vivienne Westwood, but never had the opportunity.

That was until the fashion legend turned up at an anti-fracking protest in Lancashire in 2018.

Discussing the event ahead of an exhibition of his unseen photographs from that day, Wolfgang said the encounter was everything he had always hoped it would be, adding: "It was like she was Joan of Arc, walking down the street with this big crusade of people behind her."

The fashion designer, who grew up on the outskirts of the Derbyshire town of Glossop in the 1940s and 50s before moving to London in her teens, became almost as well-known for her activism as she was for her couture.

Alongside her work in fashion, she campaigned relentlessly on the causes she held dear.

She supported Aids Research, Peta and Oxfam, gave hundreds of thousands to the Green Party and was a regular visitor to Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange during his seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

She even parked a white tank outside then-Prime Minister David Cameron's house in a protest against fracking, part of a campaign that later brought her to Little Plumpton in Lancashire in October 2018, after the site was earmarked for fracking.

It was an opportunity that Wolfgang could not pass up.

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"The punk era itself came about because of politics at that time and... Vivienne's punk design came from that.

"I've also had an affinity with that in my own work.

"When I found out she was going to the protest, I knew that was my chance."

The 62-year-old said the day gave him a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the "real" Westwood and what he captured showed the "born protester" stringing together banners, making tea for the campaigners and doing a dissenting dance to Abba's Dancing Queen.

"I wanted to photograph what she was doing as a record of that day," said Wolfgang.

"She didn't drive around in big black limousines with security, like A-listers do.

"She was there helping out and setting up everything."

He said seeing her lead a march was nothing short of spectacular.

"It was like she was Joan of Arc walking down the street with this big crusade of people behind her.

"It was quite a spectacle just watching her."

The day also gave him the chance to speak with Westwood, a chat which showed him exactly why she was such a beloved figure.

"She starting speaking to me like she'd known me all my life," he said.

"[We spoke] about the cut of the recent royal wedding dress, about my wife who had worn one of her dresses at our wedding.

"She was very open and very approachable.

"It was a beautiful conversation - she was the woman I had always hoped she was."

Wolfgang said the Abba dance was a rebellious nod to then-PM Theresa May, who had danced her way on stage to the same tune at a recent Conservative Party conference , and part of Westwood's subversive way of challenging the establishment.

"By dancing to the Abba track, she was saying sometimes there's nothing done by politicians," he said.

"She was actually using it to demonstrate 'I'm not gonna just sit here and do nothing'.

He said that for him, the moment encapsulated the approach Westwood, who died aged 81 in 2022 , took to her life and career.

"She never let go of standing for her values about changing the world and something, which in her eyes, was for the better," he said.

"She was 77 then but she was there, protesting basically until the day she died.

"She was a born protester [and] she carried her connection to the North West with her for all of her life."

He said his collection of photographs, which will be shown for the first time, gave "an insight to how she works".

"We read about her and see pictures and everything, but this is showing quite an intimate side to that.

"It is her in her zone, talking to people, working on something she believed in.

The Westwood-led day of protest was far from the only campaigning at the site.

The site on Preston New Road, near Blackpool, was the country's first horizontal fracking site but after more than 120 tremors were recorded during drilling, the controversial process was banned in 2019.

Fracking - a process which involves drilling into the earth and directing a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemicals at a rock layer, to release the gas inside - sparked lengthy protests from environmentalist groups and local communities in Lancashire.

The drilling site was suspended for a final time in 2022.

Wolfgang said the serendipitous matching of that date with his show felt "poignant".

"It will be a 'full circle' moment to see the land restored by the closing date of the exhibition," he said.

Vivienne Westwood - Unseen Photography Exhibition by Paul Wolfgang Webster is at Manchester Central Library from 12 October to 31 December 2026. Entry is free.

Vivienne Westwood - Unseen Photography Exhibition by Paul Wolfgang Webster

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