A fashion manifesto for 2026

On Instagram, I recently came across a resurfaced clip from a 2012 BBC News Interview of Matthew Stadlen’s “Five Minutes With” featuring Dame Vivienne Westwood.

- REY ROBES ILAGAN

When asked for recession-proof fashion advice, Westwood answered with clarity: “Dress up, wear your old favorites over and over again. Don’t buy new clothes. So buy less, choose well, and add things that just make it very personal.”

More than a decade later, that soundbite feels less like advice and more like a manifesto.

Westwood, one of my favorite designers, was advocating sustainability long before it became a marketing buzzword or a neatly labeled ESG checked box for compliance. At a time when the fashion industry was starting to head toward ultra-fast fashion, where product turnaround was reduced to days instead of months and weeks, she was already calling out overconsumption for what it was: wasteful, unimaginative, and rather useless. Today, when sustainability is often reduced to recycled tags and capsule collections, her words feel refreshingly direct.