“I see it as very personal to her,” Kronthaler said of the collection. He named it after Dame Vivienne’s birthplace of Tintwistle in Cheshire and based it on a vision she had once told him about. “She imagined these people from the north coming down to London and changing the status quo; taking over. They would wear clothes to match that big important occasion.” On the backdrop of Hôtel de la Marine’s pre-Revolution gilded salons, Kronthaler sent out his clan of revolutionaries, dressed like futuristic Anglo-Saxon tribespeople in kilts and checks and tracksuits and gingham and jockstraps and thigh high boots and cascading cocktail dresses and bourgeois bows and Toile de Jouy that looked like cave paintings. It was magnificent. A skirt gesturally pulled up at the front paid tribute to “the masturbation skirt” Dame Vivienne and Kronthaler invented together.

Much of it was made from Dame Vivienne’s antique fabrics

In his poetic self-penned show notes, which were so emotional they’re hard quote, Kronthaler wrote how he had used some of the 17th century fabrics he and Dame Vivienne collected together. “I hope you don’t mind,” he noted. “Everything is really leftovers,” he said backstage. “I had a couple of lengths and got it out of the wardrobe and said, that’s it. I’m going to use it up now. And give it a new lease of life or whatever you call it.” Infused into garments that could have been haute couture, the antique fabrics imbued the collection with soul – not just that of the history they’d seen, but of the shared memories of Kronthaler and Dame Vivienne that lived within them. The notion was reinforced by a classical soundtrack, interrupted – in true Westwood style – by AC/DC’s T.N.T.

It marked a new chapter for Andreas Kronthaler

Because Dame Vivienne had already renamed her Paris line from Gold Label to Kronthaler’s name, the collection felt like a natural progression of his visual identity, albeit a little more polished and a little more couture. Kronthaler said she had wanted him to work on her eponymous London line after her death, but that he wants to put it on a different platform. “I think it needs its own space and I think it will have to be shown in London, at home. I don’t think it needs to be connected with fashion week, either.” Speaking of platforms, Kronthaler finished his show notes with a special request of Dame Vivienne’s: “You once said to me that you can take everything away, just leave me my platform shoes because one can’t do without them. Maybe the most important thing you ever taught me was to put the woman on a pedestal.”