Some designers push the limits. Dame Vivienne Westwood blows them up. At Paris Fashion Week showcased Vivienne Westwood’s collection was colorful, wild and childlike and — eco outrageous. How’s that for a new term?

It all began with a letter mailed to the the queen of punk fashion from an elementary school class in Nottingham, England. Westwood not only wrote back, but knowing how imaginative children are, offered an art assignment that would turn into the unexpected opportunity of co-designing her Fall 2008 collection.

Westwood challenged the students to think into the future, and paint for her their ideas of what an eco-warrior would look like:

imagine soldiers who had been fighting in the jungle but when the war was over had so fallen in love with nature that they decided not to go back to the city.”

Who else but an eight-year old would grab a brush and paint straightaway on a yard of silk? While Westwood experimented with silhouettes, the kids experimented with print and pattern. Catch the show, the interviews with Westwood, the students and their teacher below.

More on the Eco-Warrior Fashion Show:

The collection in pictures at Telegraph
Style.com
Hello Magazine
Coutorture
Elle UK Magazine

Thanks to One Tiny Spark for the find, and the Lohasian for the video link.