Vivienne and I first met on a British Vogue photoshoot in 1999. I can’t remember where it was, but I had to be there at 12 o’clock, and I was busy trying to finish work for the Turner Prize. I said I would just go by Tube, but Vogue insisted on sending me a car. The traffic was horrific, and by the time I got there, I was in a really foul mood. Someone from Vogue asked if there was anything they could get me, and I said I needed some cigarettes. Then someone walked over and handed me a Gitane – and when I looked up, it was Vivienne Westwood. She said, “If you think you’ve got a problem, I’ve been here for hours!”
We got on immediately and exchanged numbers, and then she invited me to her show in Paris. I was wearing a Diane von Furstenberg dress and those Prada boots that had the red up the back, and Vivienne said, “I don’t understand why you’re wearing those boots!” I said it was because I couldn’t walk in high shoes, so then Andreas Kronthaler, her husband and creative partner, made me take them off, he drew around my foot, and that’s when they first made what they called the Tracey trainer. The shoe was made to the shape of my foot, so from then on, I was just running around everywhere in my tall Westwood shoes.
I think Vivienne was drawn to me because she could see that I was a maverick, like her. She said I had a lot of style, and she liked that I was outspoken and unafraid, and had a moral compass. Vivienne was very funny, too. We used to argue a lot, and not many people argue with Vivienne. But the longer I knew her, the more it became obvious she was right about everything. Everything she said, she was right about eventually.
I’m like Vivienne. I keep the same clothes. My oldest Westwood ballgown is 22 years old, and I wear it all the time still. We’ve put seams in it, we’ve altered it, we’ve made it smaller, we’ve made it bigger. On every big occasion that I have, I wear the same dress. The other thing about Vivienne is that being an older woman, you can still wear Westwood and look cool, because Westwood clothes are so comfortable. Everybody thinks that Westwood is all about being wild and crazy, but there’s a whole mix in there.
When I first started wearing Vivienne’s clothes and appearing in her campaigns, I got slagged off for it by the art world! If you read articles from the time, they’re calling me a clotheshorse, or saying I was selling out. Now everything in art is backed by fashion brands, and nobody’s questioning it, and all the artists are collaborating for money. I didn’t do it for money with Vivienne. There were no contracts. I did it because I liked Vivienne and what she stood for.
When I started wearing Westwood, I just felt so sexy and so alive. I felt amazing. And looking at all the clothes during this shoot, seeing the quality of everything and all the piping and the double seams, and some of the pieces being just one piece of fabric that is draped and twisted: it’s magical. It could be just one square piece of cloth, and then when you put it on it becomes something completely different. There’s an alchemy to her clothes – they’re more than just something you wear.