Vivienne Westwood honoured in Glossop mural

A new piece of street art has appeared in Glossop, courtesy of local creative, Deggy.

Celebrating the grand dame of fashion and global icon, Vivienne Westwood - who was born in Tintwistle and went to school in Glossop -  the mural has been created in Deggy’s unique style using spray paint.

Glossop has evolved its creative status over the last few years with a series of campaigns by placemaking platform, Glossop Creates, which was set up to provide support to the town’s creative community. 

'I felt strongly about giving something back to the community'

Deggy said of the new piece: “I think something like this has always needed to happen in Glossop. I learnt there was talk of a museum in Glossop featuring items from Westwood's collection that would have been amazing for the town, but the idea was rejected. This inspired me to create a piece that would honour Vivienne Westwood in the form of a large canvas painting that featured in the Winter Art Trail last year, which was produced and hosted by Glossop Creates. 

“The piece received a fantastic local response which motivated me to challenge myself with my biggest project to date - a 13-foot mural in the town centre. 

“Having grown up in the town and recently quitting my day job and going full time as a professional artist and musician, I felt strongly about giving something back to the community, and truly believe this mural could help bring more foot traffic to the town and bring attention to the talented art community in the area. 

“I have also recently been given the opportunity to start teaching spray art at Gamesley Youth Centre which the kids are really enjoying, and which I hope will help to inspire another generation of local artists.

“The mural in total took nine full days to complete including a lot of prep work, which The Globe pub kindly provided their upstairs function room for, and was entirely self funded. Looking to the future, I would absolutely love to do more murals around the area if funding were to be provided, hopefully featuring some more local heroes to show off some of the treasures this great town has produced. 

"Additionally, I would really like to get some of the town’s young people down from the youth club to work together with me on a project in the future to get the community more involved and give them something exciting to focus on.”

'Glossop is a place where ideas can flourish' 

Steven Dexter, of Glossop Creates, said: "The street mural by Deggy is a great example of how art can really put a town on the map, and bring the community together through creativity. Glossop Creates has been working with Deggy to champion his unique brand of art for some time, and we are pleased to see that he has used his talents to celebrate a local icon.

"Vivienne Westwood is a true creative original and her Glossop roots make the town very proud indeed. She is proof that creatives from small rural towns can have huge ambition, which is a lesson to us all. To recognise her in this way is fantastic and we hope that the mural attracts people from far and wide to our amazing town in the High Peak.

“Glossopdale is also home to author and twice winner of the Booker Prize, Hilary Mantel, and it was also home to painter LS Lowry and philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in the past. Glossop is a place where ideas can flourish, where brilliant people have both been born and chosen to live in. They have taken inspiration from this beautiful place and have gone on to change the world. The more people that know about our amazing heritage, the more empowered the people of the town will feel to follow their dreams, There’s definitely something in the air here!”

Deggy continued: “I would like to say a big thank you to Zahir Nawab at Saving Zone for letting us use his wall, Gaz Hulin for helping me with all the painting, Bobbi Hayes for all the prepwork, Will Vizard for the photographs whilst the mural was being installed, Mark Wright for the encouragement and everyone who has supported me in this endeavour.”

You can find Deggy’s work on Instagram and Facebook @thisisdeggy and www.deggy.co.uk. Find out more about Glossop’s wider creative community at www.glossopcreates.com

Listen to Deggy speaking to our reporter Gill Garston below...