Message on Vivienne Westwood label

Hello! I have just bought a wool cardigan/wrap in a typical Vivienne Westwood-style from a second hand shop but the label is very unusual so I wonder it this is a special edition or made for a special event. The label has a Happy Birthday-wish to John...? Have you ever seen such? There is also an embroidered sphere and bird . I would be very pleased to hear the story behind this from the experts here!

 

Is it really true that nobody here has seen this message on a label...? What other resources can I find besides this site?
Is it possible to contact actual Westwood - sales office to enquire, and which one? I don't think a general customer service will bother to help with this kind of detail, so if you have any ideas of how to find out the story behind the Birthday wish, please post... For instance, has there been any special people called John involved in Viviennes Westwood collections?

 

This is from a 2004 article. PLEASE DO NOT COPY/REPRINT it anywhere, because of its copyright protection. This is posted here for educational purposes only:

"Another top designer wheeling out a diffusion collection this season is that most eclectically eccentric of fashion icons, Vivienne Westwood...Viv has gone back to her roots as a good ol' Derbyshire lass by teaming up with Matlock-based knitwear makers John Smedley.

Viv, you see, has long been a fan of Smedley, which celebrates its 220th anniversary this year, and has been a frequent visitor to its factory since her youth. She is apparently particularly keen on its underwear range, which is also a firm favourite with the Royals.

Thus it is that she has collaborated with the company to come up with To John, Happy Birthday, Love Vivienne, a range of 220 pieces (one for each year of the company's history) blending underwear and knitwear. Each piece sports the distinctive Westwood 'orb' and the 'Jay' bird logo of John Smedley, and has a, ahem, 'bondage undertone'."

 

FANTASTIC, Thank you so much! It is indeed a wool wrap so makes perfect sense that it is from this John Smedley anniversary collection. The cardigan has also lots of wrapping /bondage but is not very much an undergarment.. Now I can date it exactly to 2004 and it has a history. I will try to add picture here below for everyone to see!

 

Where did you find this article, could you post the link?

 

Where did you find this image, I'm struggling to find pieces from this collaboration, do you know what I could search to find them?

 

Here is information about the article, which I was able to access through Proquest. Libraries usually subscribe to Proquest, so you may be able to find it through your local library. I believe, however, that Proquest has many components and your library would need to be subscribed to the package that has the Birmingham Post--unless you can access that newspaper's archives somewhere else. I am able to access Proquest through the library of the university I attended for graduate school, so you can try that route.


Here is information about another, lengthy article about the Westwood-Smedley collaboration...

 

Not sure if this has already been posted as I can't open any of the above links.

https://www.johnsmedley.com/discover/design/vivienne-westwood/

I also noticed that there are a couple of Westwood/Smedley knitwear items currently listed on Ebay.