As avant-garde and edgy as ever at age 70, Dame Vivienne Westwood is still kicking up her heels.

Following the triumph of her shoes ("shoes" and "footwear" don't begin to describe her fancy footwork) exhibitions in London, Moscow and Beirut, the "Mother of Punk,'' shod in her signature platform shoes from the latest Gold Label collection, showed up in Shanghai Tuesday night.

Dame Vivienne put her best foot forward at Grand Gateway 66, presenting the ultimate fetish object: the shoe in all its extremes.

From the gloriously elegant to the rebelliously provocative, her shoes push boundaries, gravity and sense of balance. Britain's iconoclastic designer famously says: "Shoes must have very high heels and platforms to put women's beauty on a pedestal.''

Mainly from the designer's personal archive, around 80 pairs of iconic killer heels and gravity-defying boots designed over Westwood's 40-year fashion career are showcased in the exhibition titled simply: "Vivienne Westwood Shoes: 1973–2011.'' It runs through Sunday, then moves on to Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles.

Highlights include the 1993 Super Elevated Gillie (famous for causing Naomi Campbell to take a catwalk spill); the Rocking Horse, which became an instant collectible when it appeared in 1986; and Pirate Boots, first seen in 1981 and still in demand.

Not only did Dame Vivienne kick off her exhibition, but she also cut the ribbon to officially open the Vivienne Westwood Shanghai flagship store (first floor, Grand Gateway 66). She was joined by her husband and creative director Andreas Kronthaler; president of Vivienne Westwood Ltd Carlo D'Amario; and the Hong Kong female Cantopop duo Twins. Another Westwood store is in Pudong IFC Mall; the other mainland store is in Beijing.

The flame-haired Queen Mother of British fashion epitomizes cool. For the last four decades, the free-thinking design guru has built a reputation for being defiantly individual. That hasn't changed. She is famously unpredictable. In 1992, when receiving her OBE from the Queen, she wore a sheer gown without underwear. She rides a bicycle to her London fashion shows.

From the very earliest days of her career, the self-taught designer's vision clashed with the rest of the fashion world. She carved out a niche for punk-inspired designs and led the resurgence of corsets and crinolines into the modern ready-to-wear market. A Vivienne Westwood garment is divorced from current trends, each piece reflecting her believe that individuality is a value that ought to be encouraged, and every season she takes the breath away, at least from her fans.

During the opening Tuesday, Dame Vivienne said very little and didn't grant interviews. She did carefully check details of the shoe exhibition as well as the store that carries a mix of her four lines, Gold Label, Red Label, Anglomania, and Man.

"We wanted to create a bazaar in the shop, from a US$100 accessory to a US$1,000 dress,'' said D'Amario, president of Vivienne Westwood Ltd who has worked with the designer for 25 years. He has helped make Westwood's visions wearable and create a multi-million dollar business with international appeal.

The Milan businessman said Westwood has already built a strong image in Asia, successfully entering the Japan market 20 years ago, followed by South Korea and China.

"China is the right country at this moment with its stable economic environment," D'Amario said. "For a fashion company, the more you are creative, the more you need stability."

Young people in China are showing "attitude, independence and sophistication, instead of simply following one market trend. They love mixing and matching quality clothing and accessories," he said. "China is quite a match with our brand value, which is for today's consumers who want to be the trend instead of following trends.''

In the next three years, the company plans to open more than 40 shops on the Chinese mainland, he said.

Girl next door

"We want to be avant-garde and inspirational in big cities like Shanghai but also bring our concept to the girl next door in small cities with a more democratic approach.''

Different countries have different market demands: young Japanese consumers love leather goods, bags and accessories while mature European buyers go for an all-together look, he observed. "We don't impose in any market. We select the best-fit products according to market demand. We are here to learn what Chinese people want.''

In a fast-changing and competitive fashion industry, Vivienne Westwood remains an independent brand. "Being independent means that with our creativity we make profits; the big fashion group with money buys creativity. We work three times harder than other people in the industry,'' D'Amario said.

Vivienne is actually a very simple person, he said, speaking of their 25-year friendship. "She is not a diva, a star, a socialized person. She rides a bicycle to work, she reads a lot and loves art. She is a very demanding, hard-working and honest person.''

Last night, the much-anticipated Vivienne Westwood runway show opened Shanghai Fashion Week at the Shanghai International Fashion Center. It was the first-ever Asian show for the brand.

Kronthaler, Dame Vivienne's husband and creative director of Vivienne Westwood, told Shanghai Daily on Wednesday that the runway show would feature a special collection from the brand's four lines, as well as the exclusive collection Red Carpet by Vivienne Westwood.

"Red Carpet is a capsule collection we make for film festivals and special customers and we've never shown them anywhere," the Austrian designer said. "I think people will appreciate our Red Carpet designs because I have a feeling that people love to dress up here."

Kronthaler said China was a major influence in the Gold Label spring/summer 2012 collection. "China has been always a great inspiration to us. Westwood loves Chinese culture, especially Chinese painting," he said.

The company is very concerned about climate change and China, as a powerful country with a long history, may help save the planet, Kronthaler said, but added he might be "naive" in that hope.

The latest collection features Westwood's reinterpretation of a Mao-style jacket, a Mao cap, and a print that mixes Chinese elements. Kronthaler said that during a trip to Kenya, they met a Chinese calligrapher who wrote "Vivienne Westwood" in Chinese. "We put it on top of a traditional Chinese flower painting and injected little stamps of our logo to make it a typical Chinese layered print.''

Kronthaler, who is 25 years younger than Westwood, met the designer in 1988 when she taught at the Vienna School of Applied Arts in his first year of study. During that year, Kronthaler created a series of dresses inspired by the Renaissance; circular and extra-long, they would be worn in many ways by incorporating a belt. Westwood recognized the talent and invited him to London to work.

For more than 20 years, the duo has collaborated to develop collections, including the latest. The couple leads the design team and is totally involved in the Gold Label from the beginning to end.

Born in Derbyshire in 1941, Westwood studied art and taught elementary school in North London before embarking on a fashion career.

In the 1970s, Westwood was a central figure in the London Punk movement, when she began designing clothes. She joined with British rock impresario, her then-lover and business partner Malcolm McLaren opening the shop Let it Rock in 1971 at 430 Kings Road. It was subsequently renamed Sex; Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die; and Seditionaries. Today the name is World's End.

With McLaren (who died last year) she created the look of bands, including the Sex Pistols and the Clash, featuring rough-edged street-style that included zippers, studs, razor blades, safety pins, and spiked dog collars worn as chokers.

Beyond studs and punk

Westwood's influence on punk was huge but she went on to create some of the most recognizable designs in the world: the pirate boot, the mini-crinis, outrageous platforms, and her own design tartan, based on a witty reinterpretation of historical dresses and textiles. She is a master of extracting elements of past styles and modernizing them.

Words like outrageous and rebellious were frequently applied to her work, but Kronthaler observed, "There's always a touch of British elements. We have been always inspired by different cultures.''

The commercially successful designer is always eyeing new markets, but Dame Vivienne has made waves in recent years by complaining about rampant consumerism and publicly advising her legions of fans to stop buying so many clothes.

She believes in scaling back the excess and focusing on quality. "Buy Less, Choose Well" is the slogan on her new "sustainable" natural fiber T-shirt; the aim is to raise awareness of the impact of fashion production and "fast fashion" on the climate, through increased emission of greenhouse gases.

Westwood is one of few people in the fashion industry who is also working vigorously as an environmental activist and urging people to reduce their carbon footprint. She used the runway for her 2011 Red Label show to launch a fund-raising project for Cool Earth.

This summer she released her "Ethical Fashion Africa" collection of handbags that uses recycled materials such as safari tents and road signs; this project with the International Trade Center focuses on joint problems of poverty and environmental degradation. More than 7,000 marginalized Kenyan women are employed to make the handbags.

Westwood's "manifesto" can be found on her website Active Resistance to Propaganda (http://www.activeresistance.co.uk), where she writes her views on the environment, social issues, politics and culture.

Married to Westwood in 1993, Kronthaler has chosen to be a silent partner over the years, preferring to take a less public role, but their partnership is nevertheless one of fashion's most formidable and complementary. While Westwood was unconventional and challenging, Kronthaler was driven by quality and progress.

He said Westwood doesn't change her daily wardrobe very much. "She just reads. She reads a lot about the environment. It's all her life,'' he said. Wherever they go, they visit galleries and museums; they recently visited the Shanghai Museum and found it "brilliant," he said.

She believes in simple pleasures: cooking, reading, cycling everywhere.

"I'm so glad she is around in my life. She is a great cook and I really love her omelet,'' Kronthaler said. "She is my inspiration, my support. She is everything for me."