During Westwood’s three years of guest teaching in Vienna, Kronthaler designed a collection of long, circle-skirted “sun-wheel” dresses inspired by the Renaissance period. Westwood, who was certainly impressed, extended an invitation for him to return to London with her and further work on the designs. As they collaborated, a romantic relationship blossomed, and they were married in 1993.

Kronthaler has been officially leading the creative direction of the British brand since 2016, when the former Gold Label—the main Vivienne Westwood line presented in Paris—was renamed Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood. The lower-cost and higher-volume Red Label was kept as Vivienne Westwood, presented in London and designed by Westwood and Kronthaler together.

Although Kronthaler has been at the forefront of the house’s work for three decades, he admits that it has not been easy since his design partner and mentor—not to mention, of course, life partner— died.

“I still find it a bit difficult because [for all those years], she was always somebody I could go to and ask. She always helped,” he says. “Suddenly she isn’t here; but I have a great team around me, that I’ve worked with for 20 to 25 years, and I rely on them very much.”

Together, the team has managed to continue the founder’s work. “The last two collections were one in February [2023], [which] was very close to her passing; I’d already worked on the collection, but as soon as she passed, I changed it a little bit and started to make things very much with her in mind—things she liked and her favourite garments,” Kronthaler says. “Then [for] this latest collection [spring-summer 2024], I archived her clothes at home: we lived together and we had a dressing room which we shared. It was one of the first things I wanted to sort out, because you keep on seeing these things. So I started to archive.”

Kronthaler sorted through and photographed 250 looks, before narrowing down the selection of pieces he would look to inspiration for the collection.

“I thought: how do I choose? Then I thought, I’ll do 34 looks, because I knew her for 34 years. She didn’t have many clothes really, especially the ones she wore on a daily basis. She would mend them till they were made out of different bits and pieces. [That’s] impossible [these days]; nobody would do that. But she just wouldn’t throw anything away. One thing I [knew had to be in the collection] was the suit she always wore. And it was the first one [that I drew]. So I thought that was a good sign.”

The suit he refers to is a brown micro-corduroy look from the 2004 collection. Westwood wore it regularly for almost 20 years, making occasional repairs along the way. In Kronthaler’s spring-summer 2024 collection, it appeared in a purple-ish berry palette and relaxed silhouette. 

“[I thought,] how do I transform [her own pieces] into the here and now: some I changed a little bit, some I changed quite a bit and some hardly, [with] fabrics and stuff I had around,” he says.

Any Westwood fan will notice memories of and tributes to past collections and realise that, while to the untrained eye, the line-up might seem random, it makes complete sense in the context of the different eras of the founder’s own wardrobe. The mother of punk was, after all, a style icon in her own right.

“For me, she was the most good-looking; not the most chic, [but] always the best-dressed person at home or in a room or anywhere,” Kronthaler says. “The clothes were one thing, but she was always so good at how she made herself look great. She was always confident and satisfied.”

The carefully curated collection may be small, but it featured everything from checked miniskirt sets and sky-high platform heels to rainbow-sequinned bodysuits and polo dresses. There was a linen cape in look six, a modified version of one Westwood wore in 2015 to ride in a tank and park it on the lawn of then British prime minister David Cameron to protest against fracking, making headlines around the world.

Cora Corré—the daughter of Joseph Corré, Westwood’s second son, and fashion designer Serena Rees—closed the show in a rigorous white corset gown, the house’s ritual bridal look. The younger Corré, who had been close to her grandmother growing up, is a familiar face, having appeared in recent Vivienne Westwood campaigns and shows. The model is now also the driving force behind The Vivienne Foundation, a NGO set up by Westwood herself and officially launched by her sons and her granddaughter in late 2022 to speak out about climate change, war, human rights, and capitalism.

Kronthaler explains that creating the collection served as a form of mourning for him. “It was just a pure homage, and it was a process for me … because I looked at it, I confronted myself … which helped me to go further and [realise] now I’m ready to do something else,” he tells Tatler.

“Before, [he and Westwood] were so close, and everything we did, we did together. And she thought I should become more independent with what I do. I wasn’t so sure at the beginning, and it wasn’t even so much my wish. But I remember when I did the first collection [after Westwood died], I felt, ‘This is good. This is helpful to me as a person.’”

Kronthaler very much believes in the power of fashion, and that the choices individuals make reflect their personality. But he also sees the hypocrisy of creating when so much of what his wife did was done with the planet in mind. We ask him how he hopes people will remember Westwood, and the work he did with her. “I think I would leave this up to the individuals because there is a lot, and everybody can pick something [different],” he says, adding that he hopes people take to heart the message to be as conscientious as possible and “try not to consume blindly”.

Until her death, Westwood remained outspoken about protecting the environment; the Vivienne Westwood website has a whole section on what the brand does in terms of supply chains, sustainable packaging and carbon emissions, for example.

“Sustainable is just a silly word, but you try to be as conscientious as possible, which is very, very hard,” says Kronthaler. “And as soon as you make something you are [impacting the environment]; [sustainable fashion is] a contradiction. We shouldn’t need to make anything in theory—there are a hundredfold enough [items of clothing] in the world which we still could use—but we keep adding and adding, and we can see now very clearly what the consequences are.”

The answer to this dilemma has always been in the Englishwoman’s famous statement: “Buy less, choose well and make it last.” The rise of second-hand shopping and resales— of course, Vivienne Westwood is one of the most popular fashion labels in this sector—is a step in the right direction.

“We know people are creatures of habits, and we don’t easily change. But change will happen if there is a mess or chaos, and we’re getting near to that,” Kronthaler says of the increasingly fragile environmental situation. “That [statement] should not only be for fashion—it should be a mantra for life. And it’s truer [now] than it has ever been.”

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