LONDON — The battle over the Vivienne Westwood brand is intensifying.
In an email to Vivienne Westwood staff seen by WWD, the late iconic designer’s granddaughter Cora Corré called for the longtime chief executive officer Carlo D’Amario to be fired, and accused him of bullying her late grandmother, the company’s founder and creative heart.
In the email, Corré claimed D’Amario’s “behavior towards employees, his mismanagement, his lack of basic corporate discipline and communication brings enormous shame and reputational damage” to the company.
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Corré, the daughter of Westwood’s younger son Joe Corré and Serena Rees, has also accused D’Amario of hampering the work of the Vivienne Foundation, a not-for-profit founded by the designer, and of failing to pay royalties on the sale of her designs.
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The model and activist said she wants Westwood company directors to “take action where they have the power to do so. The first step is removing Carlo D’Amario from his position as CEO.”
Earlier this week, Corré revealed separately that she was quitting Vivienne Westwood to focus her attention on the foundation.
She said her position at the fashion company had become “untenable.” While Corré would like to see Vivienne Westwood Ltd. and the foundation work in harmony, she believes it will not be possible as long as D’Amario remains CEO.
“It has now been two years and despite our best efforts, not a single conversation has been instigated by the VW Company with The Foundation. This breakdown in communication has brought me so much sadness. I really cannot see the possibility of a harmonious relationship between the company and the foundation at this point in time,” Corré said in an Instagram post earlier this week.
In the email to staff she also alleged that D’Amario trademarked “The Vivienne Foundation” in a manner that effectively blocks it from fundraising and holding charitable events. One of the aims of the foundation is to raise money for, and partner with, human rights and environmental NGOs.
Corré claimed that D’Amario has “set his sights on destroying [Westwood’s] charitable legacy in bad faith, and on restricting the work of the Foundation. I believe Vivienne would wish for these details to be brought to light so that those who have tarnished her legacy can be exposed, and action can be taken.”
She also accused D’Amario of ignoring the late designer’s intellectual property rights.
Before her death, Westwood transferred her creative estate to the foundation, including her copyrights and intellectual property such as designs, artwork, works of art, writings, diaries, notes, drawings and other material.
The rights also include new designs made since the formation of the foundation, and everything that Westwood designed or created prior to 1993, before the Vivienne Westwood Ltd. company was formed.
“The VW company continues to produce and make profits from [her] designs, without paying any royalties, or having any agreement to do so. This is particularly evident in Vivienne’s jewelry designs, which provide a substantial portion of the company’s revenue,” said Corré.
She claimed that senior management had “repeatedly promised” her grandmother until her death that the issue of royalties would be resolved, “and yet she has been betrayed and disrespected. This cannot be allowed to continue unchallenged.”
In the letter Corré also accused D’Amario of bullying her grandmother.
“As many of you know, in the years leading up to my grandmother’s death, she was deeply unhappy with the way the VW company was being run. It was her wish that [D’Amario] was removed and that the company was properly managed in a way that respected her values,” Corré claimed.
She alleged that D’Amario “undoubtedly caused Vivienne an immense amount of pain, suffering and stress over the years. Vivienne in fact considered this the primary cause of the illness which led to her death, something she often shared with me as I spent time with her in hospital. Seemingly, not content with the damage Carlo inflicted on Vivienne personally, he is now inflicting damage on her legacy through the company.”
Corré said she now plans to dedicate herself to the foundation. She said that, pending the settlement of Westwood’s estate, there are plans to work around four key pillars: Defending human rights, stopping climate change, stopping war and protesting against capitalism.
It is understood that the foundation has not taken any legal action against Vivienne Westwood Ltd. or D’Amario. “The aim is for him to be removed as CEO,” said a source close to Corré.
Vivienne Westwood and D’Amario have not responded to repeated requests for comment.
D’Amario owns one-third of Vivienne Westwood Ltd., with the other two thirds divided between Westwood’s estate and Andreas Kronthaler, Westwood’s widower and the brand’s chief designer.
Westwood and D’Amario worked together from 1983, and she credited him as the man “who laid the foundations for her eventual commercial triumph,” according to her biographer Ian Kelly. The Milan-based D’Amario became her manager, make key introductions, and transferred her production base to Italy.
The relationship, however, quickly became strained. “Carlo blamed me for everything that went wrong … It wasn’t very good, as a personal relationship. But as a business relationship, it worked,” Westwood said in “Vivienne Westwood” (Picador, 2014) which she co-authored with Kelly.
Westwood’s business operations were often chaotic, to put it mildly, and D’Amario’s arrival helped, in some ways, to make them less so. An often shadowy character, he could at least get Westwood to turn up for events and interviews, and also spearheaded store openings for the brand. But he could be cryptic and evasive in discussing the business, and often promised expansions and business developments for the label that never came to fruition.
D’Amario was in China earlier this month to see the Vivienne Westwood brand close the official runway calendar at Shanghai Fashion Week on Oct. 17.
Westwood first began opening stores in mainland China in 2011 via a joint venture with Inzone, a government-owned commercial property management firm that owns shopping malls and department stores across the country.
According to Companies House, the official business register in the U.K., Vivienne Westwood Ltd. had revenue of 101.3 million pounds, and profits of 30.9 million pounds in fiscal 2022, the most recent year on record.