Vivienne Westwood is so rad.

I don't know why but there's one particular library sale that I can always count on for a high yield of awesome art and fashion books. I love art and fashion books. Is there just one person donating them to this library? A cultured, moneyed person who frequents museums all over the world and can't resist the impulse buy of the $75 exhibition catalog? And then a decade or so later is like, what was I thinking buying this five-pound tome celebrating a Vivienne Westwood retrospective at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London? Let me just give it to the library, which will turn around and sell it for a dollar.

Well, thank you, whoever you are, for this pristine copy of Vivienne Westwood by Claire Wilcox, first published in 2004 (this edition is 2008). Flipping through the pages, I feel my old fashion copywriting vocabulary returning with a vengeance: Behold her busty punk-rock Marie Antoinettes and sly equestriennes and rejoice! My pictures of these pictures don't do them justice, but I'll still share more this week.

From Pagan 1 collection, spring/summer 1988. Harris Tweed jacket. "I wanted my outfit to look like a girl dressed like a man with no trousers on."

Pagan 1 collection, spring/summer 1988

From Nymphs spring/summer 2002. Photo by Alexei Hay

Pagan 1 collection, spring/summer 1988. Photo by Cindy Palmano

Cut and Slash, spring/summer 1991. Photo by Marc Hispard, from ELLE Brazil

Grand Hotel, spring/summer 1993–94. Christy Turlington in tartan photographed by Mario Testino