‘Elitist’ Westwood gets architecture lesson

Dame Vivienne Westwood may be the doyenne of London fashion but she is in hot water over her taste in architecture. The 67-year-old designer is spearheading a campaign to stop plans to build eight new flats on the roof of an apartment block in London where, with her then punk partner Malcolm McLaren, she bought a flat in the 1970s when the pair ran their SEX boutique in the King's Road.

Westwood says the proposal will destroy the Art Deco look of the 1930s building, reports the London Evening Standard. Hogwash, says a blogger, who evidently knows the place. "Those flats might be Art Deco inside, but the outside screams 'Government Hospital'. There isn't a single design element of the exterior that lends an Art Deco aesthetic to the structure. Bah, go ahead and add the additional apartments to the top storey and let this elitist 'fashion designer' kvetch until she is out of breath." ·