Dame Vivienne Westwood, the groundbreaking British fashion designer who took the style and spirit of punk from the street to the catwalk, has died aged 81.

Her fashion house announced her death on Twitter, saying Westwood died peacefully at home in London, surrounded by family.

“29th December 2022. Vivienne Westwood died today, peacefully and surrounded by her family, in Clapham, South London,” they wrote.

“The world needs people like Vivienne to make a change for the better.”

The announcement was accompanied by a quote from Westwood and a simple message from the fashion house that bears her name: “Vivienne, we love you.”

The quote from Westwood read: “Tao spiritual system. There was never more need for the Tao today. Tao gives you a feeling that you belong to the cosmos and gives purpose to your life; it gives you such a sense of identity and strength to know you’re living the life you can live and therefore ought to be living: make full use of your character and full use of your life on earth.”

In a statement, Westwood’s husband and creative partner, Andreas Kronthaler, said he would continue with their work.

“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.”

Tributes flowed from across the world after the news of Westwood’s death was announced.

Dame Vivienne Westwood displays her trademark anarchic style during London Fashion Week 2020. Photo / Getty Images

British Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan tweeted: “A sad day, Vivienne Westwood was and will remain a towering figure in British fashion.

“Her punk style rewrote the rule book in the 1970s and was widely admired for how she stayed true to her own values throughout her life.”

Westwood’s fashion career began in the 1970s with the punk explosion, when her radical approach to urban street style took the world by storm. But she went on to enjoy a long career highlighted by a string of triumphant runway shows in London, Paris, Milan and New York.

The name Westwood became synonymous with style and attitude even as she shifted focus from year to year. Her range was vast and her work was never predictable.

As her stature grew, she seemed to transcend fashion. Her designs were shown in museum collections throughout the world. The young woman who had scorned the British establishment eventually became one of its leading lights, and she used her elite position to lobby for environmental reforms even as she kept her hair dyed the bright shade of orange that became her trademark.

Vivienne Westwood at the March to The Fracked Future Carnival in 2014. Photo / Getty Images

Andrew Bolton, curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, said Westwood would be celebrated for pioneering the punk look, pairing a radical fashion approach with the anarchic punk sounds developed by the Sex Pistols, managed by her then-partner, Malcolm McLaren.

“They gave the punk movement a look, a style, and it was so radical it broke from anything in the past,” he said. “The ripped shirts, the safety pins, the provocative slogans. She introduced postmodernism. It was so influential from the mid-70s. The punk movement has never dissipated — it’s become part of our fashion vocabulary. It’s mainstream now.”

Westwood’s long career was full of contradictions: She was a lifelong rebel who was honoured several times by Queen Elizabeth II. She also became an outspoken advocate of fighting global warming, warning of planetary doom if climate change was not controlled.

- Additional reporting, Associated Press