What Punk Can Teach Us About Peace - Undividing #17

Plus The Antidote To Loss, And A Substack With A Mission To Change Fashion.

Welcome to Undividing where we are reconnecting a divided world

Hey there everyone,

Punk. Maybe not the first thought when it comes to the idea of reconnecting a divided world. Actually, seems more like a movement about making divisions. But this is all better explained by Vivienne Westwood.

If you don’t know her, she was the inventor of punk, out of a clothing store she used to own in London in the 70s. She is the reason kids still put safety pins through ripped t-shirts all over the world. And when I saw her speak in 2014, she changed my life. And I want to share that day here with all of you because I think it parallels where we find ourselves in this moment around the world, and what we can do about it.

In Undividing #17 we’re diving into:

• Undividing Our World - Vivienne Westwood’s speech at Cannes about how each one of us can change the world.

• Undividing Ourselves - I found an antidote to loss in the last place I expected.

• Undividing Extras - A Substack that’s about turning fashion into a force for good.

Let’s get undividing!

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Undividing Our World: The Queen Of Punk At Cannes.

My entire career in advertising, I had wanted to go to Cannes. It’s the pinnacle event on the advertising calendar—The Cannes Lion International Festival of Creativity—and it seemed like everyone I knew in advertising had been there except me.

So when I left full time screen writing to go back into advertising, Cannes was top of my list. I was going. End of story. And in 2014, I was finally there, ready to scratch that career-long itch.

And I hated it. Every moment.

What I naively thought was going to be a week long celebration of global creativity, was actually a week of watching drunken debauchery, deal making, and closed doors to private parties and talks we weren’t on the list of.

After a couple of days, I was ready to fly home. I just didn’t see what the whole point of it was. In fairness, I know a lot of people who’ve had totally different, amazing experiences there. And some friends who conduct a lot of the young creatives’ workshops, fostering the next generation of talent. But in 2014, I couldn’t wait to leave.

The one thing keeping me there, was seeing Vivienne Westwood speak on Friday before we flew out on the weekend.

“You want to save the planet? Here’s how you do it…”

The hottest competition at Cannes is which agency can win the most awards. The second is who can hire the biggest cultural icon and have them speak. Vivienne Westwood had been hired to speak by some agency on some topic that no one there will even remember.

Because Vivienne did what she always did—everything her way… which turned out to be our way too.

When she came out on stage, she was dressed like the most glam punk lady you’ve ever laid eyes on: Fluorescent orange hair, librarian glasses, a sharp cut suit jacket over an enormous Victorian skirt with striped stockings and pirate boots.

Vivienne Westwood looked like the aunt you always wished you’d had. The crazy one that the family doesn’t want around because she’ll tell you to drop out of school and start a band.

Vivienne sat up onstage with a moderator who asked her an opening question. Within a minute she’d gone totally off topic and was talking about the environment. In the last two decades of her life, Vivienne had given millions to environmental charities and dedicated herself to saving the planet.

Then suddenly, realising she’d been free styling, she asked the audience, not the moderator, “Oh sorry loves, I’m a million miles away. Should I get back on topic or just keep going?”

The whole auditorium shouted back, “Just keep going!!!”

Some background on Vivienne…

It may seem that someone who works in fashion should be the last person to talk about the environment. The fashion industry is one of the biggest polluters on the planet.

Vivienne was vocally anti-fast fashion. She pioneered the whole idea of “Buy Less, Choose Well, Make It Last.” It was a decidedly opposite stance to mid 2000s mass consumption and the decade that launched Top Shop and H&M.

Westwood pioneered sustainability in fashion, completely overhauling the production processes of her business. And much to her backers dismay probably, she was vocal about buying clothes second hand. Especially hers.

A proud Anglophile, when she found out that the Harris Tweed mills, which had made the most iconic UK fabrics for years, was about to go bankrupt, Vivienne incorporated tartan and other homegrown fabrics into her next few collections, “because I knew if I did that, everyone would copy it, and the mills would be saved.” And it worked.

But Vivienne Westwood has her detractors. If she’s punk, why does a dress of hers cost over a thousand pounds? Why did she accept her OBE if she’s anti-establishment? Why is she a corporation if she’s about changing business?

My guess is this: all of it gives her a platform that she uses very publicly and vocally to protest what she feels is wrong with this world.

Back to 2014 and her talk, someone put up their hand and asked her about how she got her start as a fashion designer. She giggled. “I’m not a designer, love, I’m an activist. And I work through clothing.”

You could hear a pin drop as a collective, silent, “wow, right,” moved through the auditorium. That was not the last time a piece of Vivienne logic made us all stop as we realised she’s reframed something we all thought we knew completely.

Then Vivienne told us about why she invented punk

Vivienne went on to explain to the crowd how punk was her statement against a system she saw as corrupt and entrenched. She wanted to destroy its hold over her and other people. Punk was a shocking visual display of saying, I have opted out of this system I do not believe in.

It also had to be cheap, and easily reproduced. Vivienne’s hope was that people would make their own DIY versions. All the materials to make the punk aesthetic you could buy at a hardware store; scissors, safety pins, chains, padlocks, markers, paint. She wanted people to copy and make it on their kitchen tables and in their bedrooms.

The whole point being that people could recognize each other as ones who’d also rejected the systems they were living under. Pre-internet, it was a way of finding a like-minded tribe of folks. She is documented as saying that “punk was about dressing heroes.”

But even Vivienne didn’t realise what she’d landed on. 50 years since she dressed the Sex Pistols, punk has lived on in every part of the world. From every American mall with a Hot Topic store, punks in Harajuku in Japan, and skater punks all over South America. She invented a visual language that people still understand, feel, and make their own.

From Punk to Pirates…

Back at Cannes, Vivienne went on to explain how her next focus in the early 80s was all about Pirates. After rejecting the system with punk, you had to build the next thing. The inspiration for pirates was to stop looking inward, set sail across the world, plunder its knowledge, bring it back to England, and start building something new for the people.

Now, I have to say here, that there are real pirates out there in the world who are dangerous, causing death and mayhem. And there are also colonial overtones here; Western European history of plundering the rest of the world for land, resources, and people is a shocking part of our collective pasts.

Without dismissing those, I want to focus on the meta idea of Vivienne’s: we need to learn from each other. We need a collection of all of our ideas to build something that will work for all of us.

“You've got to invest in the world, you've got to read, you've got to go to art galleries, you've got to find out the names of plants. You've got to start to love the world and know about the whole genius of the human race. We're amazing people.” - Vivienne Westwood

Then Vivienne really dropped a truth-bomb on all of us as she returned to the main part of her talk about saving the environment.

“Find something in your local area you know is bullis%*t, and protest it.”

A woman had put her hand up to ask a question—she worked in middle management, had three kids, and a sick husband. She said, “I can’t go to the Antarctic to protest, but I don’t want to just send my money somewhere either. I want to do something.”

She expressed our collective frustration of sitting in our cubicles, wondering how we’d gotten here, and what good we were doing with our lives.

Vivienne didn’t even blink, “Oh, that’s easy love.” And that’s when she told us to find something in our local area to protest.

The woman asked a follow up question, “But Vivienne, if I, I don’t know, save a playground or something, how does that save the environment?”

And this is where Vivienne showed her true genius. She explained that the people making money by ripping out a playground here, are the same ones making money by destroying the environment over there. And that if it wasn’t the same guy, they went to the same golf club.

“Kick them in the balls there, and you’ll save the environment here.” Then to all of us, she said, “When you all get home, find that thing. Doesn’t matter how small. And protest it with everything you’ve got.”

The whole audience was on their feet, clapping and cheering as Vivienne Westwood took a bow and left the stage. It was all we talked about that night at a bar, what we could each protest when we got home.

So what did I protest then?

On the plane ride home to Los Angeles, I had the whole talk on replay in my head. What could I do? I was working 60 hours a week at the ad agency. Even if I could find something locally that I could protest, when could I do it?

Then I realised, hang on. My job. I could make the agency better for the folks there. At the time, the agency had a leave policy of, “take as much time as you need.” Which of course no one did, because the truth is American corporate culture granted two weeks leave a year with an expectation that people work while they’re away anyway. That’s if your leave even gets approved.

So when I got back, I told my team to take four weeks a year. Don’t take your laptops, have someone cover for you. Look after each other. And if there’s problems with management, I’ll deal with it.

And that became the rule. I had to force some creatives to take the leave. I occasionally had to push back against management. But that was the thing I could protest, the thing in front of me that I could change.

That idea to fix what’s in front of you became my book, the first one about same-sex divorce. Then two years of failed attempts at TV shows with global messages I cared about at their core.

And today, it’s Undividing. It’s my protest against the extremes that keep us apart. It’s my way of saving this planet by getting us to talk to each other and work together again.

That one afternoon when I heard Vivienne Westwood speak changed me. It was what helped me find my way to Substack ten years later.

So I pass it on to all of you, from the Queen of Punk herself. RIP.

Which brings it back to you. And us. And Viv.

Like Auntie Viv with punk, I think we’re all feeling like we are in a system that has failed us in many ways. And that we want out of it, but to go where?

As readers of Undividing, I’m going to guess that you’re someone who wants a world that’s fair for everyone. But also wonders what on earth you can do to make that world.

So remember Vivienne’s revelation that everything is connected; protest locally and make change globally. We don’t have to leave where we are, we can change it from there.

And that that power is 100% in our hands. Viv started out making T-shirts with a single sewing machine on her kitchen table.

So, what can you protest or fix in your neighbourhood? Who can you collaborate with? Who can you win over to your side who’s currently for this thing?

Don’t let anyone tell you it doesn’t matter. It does add up, it does make a difference, it does change the world. And it inspires people around you to do the same. And you never know where it will lead you in this life.

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A quick break…

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Back to Undividing …

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Undividing Ourselves: The Antidote To Loss; Give.

When I was going through my divorce, my life had turned into one long series of losses. Loss of income, property, sanity, identity, any legal rights I thought I might have, and ultimately my job.

What I realised though when I was writing my book later in my new home of Berlin, still mid-divorce, was that the loss was actually making room for other things to come in.

When everything was being taken from me, my natural reaction was to hoard. I figured out one day that instead of thinking about how much I’d lost, and how I was going to get it back, I could instead fill that void with what it felt like to give.

Giving became the antidote to loss. After being rejected from a soup kitchen and animal shelter because my German was absolutely rubbish at the time, I started helping out in the collective.

The ground floor of the 5 story collective, a holdout against the gentrification of the neighbourhood.

My first address in Berlin was in a former squat turned artist collective where artist friends of mine lived and let me crash. They had a performance space with a bar that generated income for the building. So I volunteered my time. I worked the bar for free. I cleaned up the theatre after performances. And I helped a lot of folks in there to rewrite film scripts, their websites, funding applications, job letters.

And the loss I felt so heavily started to leave me. Things I couldn’t change mattered less when I gave freely in a way that made a difference.

If you’re going through a lot of loss at the moment, and find it unbearable, my antidote to that was to give. And if you're inspired by what Vivienne said, you don’t have to invent a movement. In your area there are always animal shelters, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, after school programs, and volunteer organisations that need people with time, spare hands, and skills.

And they would be happy to hear from you.

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Undividing Extra: Splendid Fashion Breakdowns

The latest thing I’ve been reading on Substack and really enjoying is

Bea Warleta

with her Substack Splendid Stuff. She’s just relaunched it and I’ve enjoyed the first few newsletters.

Bea, like me, and like Viv, is a fan and critic of the fashion world. In particular how destructive it is. In Bea’s own words:

I used to own a fashion resale platform in Spain, and now I work in climate communications at an NGO, creating digital campaigns aimed at pushing corporations to spark systemic change. I love fashion and the immense potential it has to be beyond sustainable: to become a splendid force for good.

Bea does deep dives on the intersection between fashion, consumer culture and capitalism, and how we can create systemic change within fashion and beyond. Plus also a monthly Don’t Buy special showing where to find second hand versions of current fashion trends.

And like Undividing, Bea’s Substack is free so that her platform can reach as widely as possible.

Because changing any industry to something that could be a force for good never goes out of style.

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And that brings us to the end of Undividing #17.

Till Thursday when we do the next Emotions Diary, let’s move through this world undividing, and see what this planet can do.

Karl

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