Vivienne Westwood boardroom upheaval sees Jeff banks exit

Jeff Banks has been ousted from the board of Vivienne Westwood in a high-level ‘coup’ that has seen him on the opposite side of a tussle for control with her husband/Westwood creative director Andreas Kronthaler and the firm’s CEO Carlo D’Amario.

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Banks — who still runs his own fashion business and is known for his very commercial outlook — was brought in as a director shortly before Westwood’s death in late 2022. He’d been her friend and sometime business mentor for many years.

The Mail on Sunday reported the news and said there has been “bitter in-fighting” at the company “that has left the empire in chaos”.

There’s been no news on performance from the company lately, The last release was when it filed its accounts for 2022 with sales and profits rising. That was back in January so we’re unlikely to hear how 2023 went for quite a few months yet.

As for the current situation, the Mail cited unnamed insiders saying Banks was ousted after disagreements over the direction the business was heading in and “concerns that its founder’s legacy was under threat”.

Banks, who’s also a friend of Westwood’s son Joe Corre (the co-founder of Agent Provocateur), was brought in by Westwood as she was reported to have been frustrated with how her label was being run, according to sources who spoke to the newspaper. She was said to prefer a “quality over quantity” approach with a focus on creativity.

She reportedly asked Banks to “protect the brand he had helped her establish in the late 1980s” but that idea is now in tatters with him having been voted off the board and negotiating the terms of his departure. 

Neither Banks nor the company have commented on the report.