London, UK - British fashion icon Vivienne Westwood has died.

Westwood died on Thursday "peacefully, and surrounded by her family in Clapham, south London," her representatives said. She was 81.

In a statement, her husband and creative partner Andreas Kronthaler said: "I will continue with Vivienne in my heart.

"We have been working until the end and she has given me plenty of things to get on with. Thank you darling."

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Westwood, who was born in Cheshire in 1941, is largely accepted as being responsible for bringing punk and new wave fashion into the mainstream with her eccentric creations.

The pioneering fashion designer made a name for herself on the fashion scene in the 1970s, with her androgynous designs, slogan t-shirts and irreverent attitude towards the establishment.

Her designs were regularly worn by high-profile individuals and celebrities including Dita Von Teese who wore a purple Westwood wedding gown to marry Marilyn Manson, and Britain's Princess Eugenie who wore three Westwood designs for various elements of the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Westwood's designs were also featured in the 2008 film adaptation of Sex And The City starring Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw.

In addition to her work as a designer, Westwood was vocal in her support of a number of social and political initiatives including campaigning for the release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is fighting to avoid being sent to the US to face charges under the Espionage Act.

In July 2020, she sounded a warning over an Assange "stitch-up" while dressed in canary yellow in a giant bird cage.

Westwood led a colorful band of protesters chanting "Free Julian Assange" outside the Old Bailey criminal court in central London.

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Suspended inside the cage, she said: "Don't extradite Assange – it's a stitch-up."

During London Fashion Week in 2012, she appeared on the catwalk herself, wrapped in a banner bearing the words "climate revolution" and bearing lots of flesh underneath.

Speaking ahead of her show, which came on the third day of London Fashion Week, she said that showing her clothes simply provided her with a platform to talk about climate change.

"It's my job and it gives me an excuse," she said.

"Before we've had class war, we've had rich against poor, do you know what the division is now? It's idiots against eco-warriors. That's it."

As the self-styled queen of punk, she always injected controversy into the fashion industry with her risqué creations.

The designer was largely responsible for anti-establishment punk fashion and became known for her subversive and eccentric take on traditional British style.

She and Malcolm McLaren, one-time manager of punk band the Sex Pistols, opened a shop called Let It Rock – also known as Sex – in the early 1970s where she began selling her outrageous outfits.

The punk style included bondage gear, safety pins, razor blades, bicycle or lavatory chains and spiked dog collars.

Some of her best-known creations include the Mini Crini, bustle-skirts, bondage trousers and 12-inch platform shoes, the type which famously tripped up supermodel Naomi Campbell.

She developed the idea of underwear as outerwear – and Madonna's legendary conical bra worn on her Blonde Ambition tour, designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, would probably never have happened if not for Westwood.

She also transformed the corset from a symbol of female repression to one of power and sexual freedom.

RIP to the boundary-pushing fashion icon.