WHEN THE TOP NOTES HAVE GONE …….VIVIENNE WESTWOOD LIBERTINE (2000)

The top notes have gone. But then so have mine. And middle, and base, possibly, as well………but I will come to that in a minute. Vivienne Westwood enjoys a cult status in Japan, where there is still a sizeable Anglomania (Oasis, who I detest, are worshipped here – I once met Liam Gallagher backstage after an Ocean Colour Scene concert – I was once in the band – and he was a twat, albeit with a quite stunning, wolf-like sapphire lucent peepers), everybody still goes on about The Beatles, and the J-fashionistas still venerate Alexander McQueen, but even more, the late Madam Westwood. In fact, the oddball girl across the street – lips full of piercings and shaved eyebrows and tartan leggings (a few winters ago, I saw her scrabbling in the iced slush like a sped up, FX-laced J-horror movie, scooping up enough snowbricks to make an eerie ice effigy – I stood there, transfixed, wishing I could film it but then again I am friends with her mother, and we both call her daughter Vivienne as a…