The fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, a long supporter of preserving the earth, teamed up with Greenpeace, alongside with the designer Sadie Frost, in a way to promote Greenpeace's effort to Save The Arctic. This campaign included celebrities that in order to do their part, each one popped on an organic, unbleached cotton t-shirt from a 20 year-old cooperative in Peru, and posed for a portrait. The project has taken 18 months and is being exhibited on the walls of London Underground Waterloo station, right near Shell's headquarters, covering every advertising spot along the escalators.
This exhibition will remain at Waterloo Station until Sunday 26th July.
TV stars, movie stars, musicians and fashion icons made part of this project, such as, actors George Clooney, Hugh Grant, Dame Judi Dench, Game Of Thrones actresses Maisie Williams and Gwendoline Christie, singers Chris Martin, Rita Ora, Jessie J and Paloma Faith, modelling mother and daughter Jerry Hall and Georgia May Jagger, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, to name some. The portraits for Greenpeace were taken by award-winning celebrity photographer Andy Gotts MBE.
Almost 60 celebrities were photographed wearing the "Save The Arctic" t-shirt designed by the fashion designer and after that they all signed a petition in an attempt to stop Shell from drilling for oil.
All of these stars got together to fight for the same cause as they extend a global call to protect the unique Arctic landscape and wildlife.
For Dame Vivienne Westwood, a fashion's nonconformist queen, "true" fashion is an important part of culture and she is trying to make her business more efficient and self-sustaining which also means making happy all the people that work with her.
For now she would like to hold back on business expansion to reconcile her fashion empire with her strong ecological beliefs and her concerns about mass production. Her mission is to invest in quality, rather than expand even more and investing in quantity; and continue to use her high-profile brand to put forward her political beliefs.
In recent years, Vivienne Westwood's campaigns have been focused on the ecology of climate change and supporting the Charity Cool Earth's efforts to preserve the rainforests, among others. The fact that people don't realize how quickly we are marching towards a possible mass extinction was something highlighted by the fashion designer. Noticing the fact that once the global temperature goes up beyond two degrees, we can't stop it.
Being the Arctic one of the last untouched places on earth, both Vivienne and Greenpeace hope to protect it for generations to come. The project "Save The Arctic" has been running since 2012, but this campaign hopes to thwart plans for Shell to commence drilling for oil in the Arctic, off the coast of Alaska. Like Vivienne Westwood said, this is really a matter of life and death and if the Arctic won't be saved, forget it - the human race will not survive.
