FOR years she has been pushing boundaries. She is innovative, uncompromising and quintessentially British. Throughout her long career as a fashion designer, she has constantly challenged the 'norm' and ideas of masculinity and femininity. Dame Vivienne Westwood is the Queen of British fashion.

Westwood was born Vivienne Isabel Swire in 1941, in Tintwistle, Derbyshire. Her parents, Gordon and Dora Swire, had married two years previously, just after the outbreak of World War II. When Vivienne was seventeen years old the family moved to London, where Vivienne studied fashion and silversmithing at the Harrow School of Art, although she dropped out after one term, believing such a big fashion dream unachievable for a working-class girl like herself. However, things really began for her when she met Malcolm McLaren.

Westwood had already married and had a son by this time, but the marriage was soon ended. In 1971, McLaren, the manager of punk band the Sex Pistols, decided to open a boutique on King's Road. He named the shop 'Let It Rock', later known as 'Sex', 'Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die' and 'Seditionaries'. The shop sold combinations of the pair's work. From the start they were outrageous, designing clothes influenced by the appearance of prostitutes, bikers and fetishists. The clothing was outlandish and a hit; spiked dog collars, bondage trousers, bicycle chains as accessories, as well as razor blades and safety pins, were all part of the image. Westwood was passionate about punk and truly embraced the spirit; her prices were affordable and occasionally, if a person looked good in an outfit but couldn't afford it, she would simply give it to them. She made tartan stylish and the punk fashion what it is remembered as today. She shoved punk into the masses.

Looking around you can see Westwood's influence still; tartan trousers and gothic collars are still sold in High Street stores. Her designs are often sexually explicit and openly erotic, from towering high-heels to chain-mail corset tops. She aims to bring forth the female sexuality and strength in her designs, showing both the power and beauty of femininity, while all along questioning what 'femininity' actually is. She has gone through many phases; from punk to pagan, from 'buccaneer' waistcoats and frilled shirts to the chequered pattern and stripes of 'anglomania'.

Westwood manages to leap between beautifully tailored English suits to bulky bondage shirts strapped with buckles and chains. Whilst many love, and have always loved her, she has not always been so admired, as can be seen in her appearance on the chat show 'Wogan' in the late eighties, where Westwood and her models were practically laughed off stage.

Westwood has never cared to be loved by all. Yet, at 70 she is still one of the most well-loved and popular designers in Britain. Over the years she has made British fashion what it is today. She neither knows nor cares what's hot right now, and lists eighteenth century French painters as her ultimate icons. She never aimed to be popular. Yet here she is.