The campaign for Vivienne Westwood FW24 has dropped and it’s a royal affair. The collection itself found inspiration in a copy of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Wether which Andreas Kronthaler gave to Vivienne. The novel is one that Napoleon famously adored and brought with him on his Egyptian campaigns, therefore the collection began by looking at 19th century Empire style and all its excesses.

Full sleeves, high collars, and drapery – gilt metal frames, equestrian polished leather accessories and dancing slippers. Reinterpreting classical antiquity and military uniform, the FW24 campaign transports the collection to the British countryside, photographed by William Waterworth.

The campaign comes with a quote from Westwood: “Andreas bought me Goethe’s ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’ (Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774). It was the first tragic novel, and it caused a sensation – and was one of the factors which led to the Romantic movement. Napoleon took ‘Werther’ on his Egyptian campaign in 1798 – and when he met Goethe in 1808, he told him that he had read the book seven times – he decorated him. It is still a model of literature in the education curriculum across Europe.”