Vivienne Westwood, Dan Lecca, Fabio Pettinari

Four of Vivienne Westwood's fin-de-siècle runway shows inspired by Bacchus, Elizabethan pirates, and 18th-century caricatures, captured by legendary catwalk photographers Dan Lecca, Fabio Pettinari, and others in Paris, London, and Milan.

• Sold as a set of 239 color slide transparencies.
• Vivienne Westwood (English).
• Dan Lecca (American).
• Fabio Pettinari (Italian).
• Paris, London, Milan: 1998-2000.
• Black cloth binder housing dated and numbered color slide transparencies in clear plastic sleeves.

"I love art, me," Westwood wrote in her published Diaries, and she really did: the art of Velasquez, Gericault, Matisse, Watteau, and Rubens, but also the arts of corsetry and tailoring, appropriating for herself all the exaggerated artificiality and technical tricks of both worlds, plundering several centuries in service of a vision that evolved beyond punk but never beyond beauty. "At Westwood, visions were sculpted, thought about, experimented with, directly on the body, on the stand, on the floor, or just tied to the mast" (Thornquist).

The shows here include Milan Spring/Summer 1999 menswear (2 slides), the Paris Spring/Summer 2000 collection ("Summertime" — 75 slides), and the London Fall/Winter 1998 show ("Five Centuries Ago" — 69 slides), which "recalled the art world, through garments inspired by court costumes of Renaissance England, specifically in the age of Gloriana. Inspired in part by Dynasties, an exhibition of Tudor and Jacobean portraits at London's Tate in early 1996" (viviennewestwood.com).

Yet the most important is the Paris Spring/Summer 1998 show ("Tied to the Mast" — 93 slides), a favorite of the designer's. That show — a seamless blend of early 1960s Italian glamor, "flamboyant, pirate" themes (New York Times) that harkened back to her first runway show ("Pirates," 1981), and Westwood's signature modish 1970s London punk — was a touchstone for the designer. She has returned to it for inspiration in several subsequent collections, and it remains a favorite of fans, from Gwen Stefani to Margo Robbie, who recently walked a red carpet in a vintage 1998 "Mast" gown. Said Westwood of this collection: the "name, 'Tied to the Mast,' was derived from the tale that in the event of an attack or storm, women onboard a ship were tied to the pirate ship's mast to ensure their safety."

Typically retained for reference and company archives, primary materials from major fashion shows and designers are uncommon in the marketplace. A collection of unusual depth from one of the most important and influential designers of the last fifty years.