London: Stella Assange says her husband, Julian Assange, will apply to British authorities for leave from Belmarsh Prison to attend the funeral of their dear friend, Dame Vivienne Westwood.
Westwood, one of Britain’s most-loved designers and a long-time political activist and supporter of the WikiLeaks founder, died on Thursday in the UK, aged 81.
Dame Vivienne Westwood in a suspended giant bird cage in protest for Julian Assange at London’s Old Bailey in July 2020.Credit: Getty
In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Stella Assange said she first met Westwood at Julian’s 40th birthday party when he was under house arrest in Norfolk in 2011, and Westwood had remained his friend and supporter “until the end”.
A decade later, Westwood attended celebrations for Julian’s 50th birthday held in his absence because he was in jail.
“Vivienne is irreplaceable. She was a huge friend, a great supporter, and it’s an enormous loss,” Stella said in an interview by phone from Spain, where she spent Christmas with her 91-year-old father as she said she could not visit her husband in prison.
Wikileaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, Julian Assange’s father John Shipton and fashion designer Vivienne Westwood march in February 2020 in London.Credit: Getty
“She was such a generous spirit and she really, really cared about the future of the world and future generations and she really saw all of these issues as justice and truth and the destruction of the planet as interrelated causes.
“She used her profile and her fashion to fight for the causes she believed in.”
Stella said she got to know Westwood well during her husband’s seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy, where he lived as an asylum seeker to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where authorities wanted to question him over now-lapsed sexual assault allegations.
“Every couple of weeks, she would come on her bicycle and spend some time with Julian, and they loved each other’s company, and they would spend hours talking about all sorts of things,” Stella said.
“There was so much laughter and she was a very intelligent and curious spirit, she was very creative and they found each other’s company riveting.”
Julian Assange is on remand in Belmarsh Prison, a facility in south-east London often used to hold prisoners in high-profile cases involving national security, and is fighting an order for him to be extradited to the United States to face charges over the hacking of classified US intelligence cables, which he published more than a decade ago.
Stella said she spoke to her husband shortly after the news of Westwood’s death was posted on the designer’s social media feeds and that he had provided her with the first quote since he had been in prison.
Julian Assange said Westwood would be “terribly missed”.
“Vivienne was a Dame and a pillar of the anti-establishment,” he said. “Bold, creative, thoughtful and a good friend. The best of Britain.”
Westwood protests against the extradition of Julian Assange to the US, outside London’s Old Bailey Court in 2020.Credit: AP
Asked how she planned to represent her husband at Westwood’s funeral, Stella said: “Julian’s going to put in a request to be able to attend.”
Westwood was one of Julian Assange’s earliest supporters and staged stunts dressed in yellow in a cage outside the Old Bailey to draw attention to the Australian’s case, which Assange and his supporters argue is a political witch-hunt.
Stella Assange (nee Moris) cuts her wedding cake outside Belmarsh Prison in March 2022 after marrying Julian Assange.Credit: Latika Bourke
She designed the wedding dress and tartan kilts for the Assanges’ wedding inside Belmarsh Prison earlier this year.
Stella Assange said Westwood made careful alterations for the dress, including replacing the metal boning in the corset so it wouldn’t get caught in metal detectors and sewing a fresh rose into the bodice so that the bride would have a flower during the ceremony.
Her bouquet was taken from her by security and prison staff made her sign an agreement to never share the photographs of her and Assange marrying.
“There was so much detail and love in that dress and it’s really heartbreaking that she didn’t see how much joy she brought to our wedding day,” Stella said.
“But she knew that she had made our wedding day so amazing.
Stella Assange (nee Moris) with family, including sons Gabriel and Max, before her March wedding to Julian Assange. Vivienne Westwood designed the wedding dress and the boys’ kilts.Credit: AP
“It brought a lot of additional attention to our wedding and this was part of her magic and her intelligence to be able to give exposure to important political causes.”
Stella hopes to share the “unique gift” of her Westwood wedding gown and one day exhibit her dress alongside her husband’s kilt.
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