(CNN) -- Vivienne Westwood is as bald as a baby, the faintest hint of downy white hair sprouting across her naked scalp. 

Painted pink eyebrows sweep dramatically outwards. Wearing a sparkling, woven brown dress resembling an expensive hessian sack, she totters onto the stage at London's Southbank arts centre. 

Straining forward in her chair, the 72-year-old "grandmother of punk fashion" appears both vulnerable and fierce. Fragile and yet fearless. 

"The world was so mismanaged and we hated the older generation because they weren't doing anything about it," she says about forging Britain's punk aesthetic with then-boyfriend and Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren in the 1970s. 

"I don't hate the older people now -- I'm one of them. But I've been trying to do something to change things all my life." 

'God Save the Queen' 

Decades after the couple started their radical new clothes shop in an area of London called "World's End" -- displaying ripped t-shirts, rubber curtains, and even a live rat in a cage -- Westwood has become one of Britain's most prestigious fashion designers. 

This is the woman who, after receiving an award from Queen Elizabeth II in 1992, famously twirled around for photographers -- without wearing any underwear under her skirt. 

The provocative lady is still there, though a little more frail-looking these days, speaking at London's annual Women of the World Festival. 

"Buy less, choose well, make it last," she tells a crowd of hundreds -- mostly women -- patiently listening to a lecture that meanders into climate change, banks, and social responsibility. 
offering what kind of products?
displaying ripped t-shirts, rubber curtains, and even a live rat in a cage