Design legend ‘forced out of Vivienne Westwood fashion house in putsch

As Fashion queen Vivienne Westwood lay dying, she summoned fellow designer Jeff Banks to her bedside and made a monumental request: to secure her legacy by becoming a director of the company she had spent decades building up.

But less than two years after Dame Vivienne’s death, Mr Banks has been forced out of the business amid reports of bitter in-fighting and a boardroom coup that has left the empire in chaos, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The former host of the BBC‘s Clothes Show was ousted after disagreements over the direction of the fashion house and concerns that its founder’s legacy was under threat, insiders says.

‘It has made House of Gucci look like Play School,’ one well-placed source said in reference to the 2021 film about the vicious fight to control the Italian fashion brand.

On one side of the split dividing Vivienne Westwood Ltd lies Mr Banks, a friend of the late designer’s son Joe Corre. On the other is Carlo D’Amario, the company’s chief executive, and Andreas Kronthaler, Dame Vivienne’s third husband and the label’s creative director.

‘There’s a mismatch between the heritage of Vivienne Westwood, where it is now and where it is going,’ one insider said.

Click here to resize this module

Dame Vivienne shot to fame by creating the Sex Pistols’ punk image in the 1970s and went on to build up a £70 million business empire. 

But towards the end, the designer, who was made a dame in 2006, had grown frustrated with how the label was being run, sources claim, and was said to be working on a book venting her irritation.

She was said to be particularly concerned at a ‘toxicity’ within the business and that some of its designs were not creative enough. 

‘It reached a point where Vivienne wanted to shut it down,’ one insider said. 

‘She always believed in quality over quantity. She would submit a load of designs and the complicated, creative stuff would be overlooked.

‘She and her designers would be distraught over all that time spent making beautiful creations that would never be made.’

Days before her death in December 2022, aged 81, she summoned her longtime friend Mr Banks to her hospital bedside. 

‘I felt like Cardinal Wolsey going to see the monarch,’ he later said. 

As they chatted, she asked him to protect the brand he had helped her establish in the late 1980s.

But the MoS has learned that Mr Banks, 81, was recently voted off the board of the holding company and is now negotiating the terms of his departure. 

The insider said Dame Vivienne ‘would turn in her grave at the thought of Jeff being pushed out.’ Sources claim Mr Kronthaler supported the ousting of Mr Banks, who declined to comment this weekend.

Vivienne Westwood Ltd did not respond to repeated requests to comment.