A dame of the British Empire, with ghostly pale skin and bright orange hair — the last person you would expect to find frolicking, semi-clad, on an LA beach is Vivienne Westwood. And the last person you would expect the 67-year-old designer to be frolicking with would be the bodacious sex symbol Pamela Anderson. The two women inhabit very different worlds, but Westwood was so taken with Anderson when they met at her spring/summer 2009 fashion show in London last September that she asked the former Baywatch babe to star in her new ad campaign. Anderson, a long-time fan of Westwood’s curve-enhancing clothes, said yes right away.

The designer is the latest in a growing line of creative figures to fall for Anderson’s considerable charms. The blonde already plays muse to the artists Richard Prince, David LaChapelle and Jeff Koons, and she doesn’t play a passive role in these relationships. She owns what she describes as “a ton” of their work too. “Yesterday, I was considered soft porn, but today I am art,” says Anderson of her cultural rehabilitation from trash-TV pin-up to high-brow connoisseur. “I have an eclectic group of friends. I like people who can feed your soul,” she continues in her breathy, little-girl voice. And Westwood is one such person.

So on the day of the American election, in November last year, Westwood and a crew, including her handsome husband, Andreas Kronthaler, and the photographer Juergen Teller, made their way to a trailer park in LA. “Pamela lives in a trailer, because she’s having her house done,” says Westwood. “But she doesn’t want the house to be finished because she loves the trailer so much.”

The designer’s clothes were held up at American customs, so the gang had just one day to shoot the entire campaign — a process that would normally take three. What followed was a madcap whirl of dressing up, stripping down and improvised showing-off for Teller’s camera. Pammy showed Viv how to flick her hair over her face like a true sex kitten. “I don’t think I’ve converted her to beach life, but we did lots of hair swinging. She got really into it,” says Anderson, who pounced on a copy of Plato’s Republic that Kronthaler was carrying, and insisted on being photographed reading it. “She’s very ironic,” says Westwood with a chuckle.

When she wasn’t modelling, Anderson whizzed the crew to different locations in her golf cart, which Teller says she drove like a maniac over the bumpy terrain, her braless bosoms bouncing with glee. They took over the trailer park’s launderette for a series of snaps and borrowed a neighbour’s smelly great dane to use as a prop. At one point, Westwood’s friends, the band Queens of the Stone Age, turned up unannounced, posed for some snaps and then feasted on the delicious spread that Anderson’s cook had prepared for everyone. The shoot ended at 4am back at Anderson’s trailer, which was sparsely furnished with beanbags, a flat-screen TV and her art collection, stacked casually against the wall. The last shot was of Pammy and Viv jumping up and down with joy when the news confirmed that Barack Obama had won the presidential race.

It was one hell of a day. “It was one of my top 10 moments,” says Anderson, before adding, “But I’ve had maybe 20 top 10 moments.” Teller was so thrilled with the pictures that he is turning them into a book, which will come out later this year.

The two women agree that theirs is a meeting of minds. “I’m not a telephone person,” says Westwood. “I don’t have a mobile. I can’t be bothered to communicate with people unless I have something very important to say.” Then, she adds: “We send each other books.” Anderson raced through The Gods Will Have Blood by Anatole France, and has just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Westwood has yet to start the Senator Edward Kennedy tome that Anderson sent to her. Anderson keeps a framed letter from Westwood next to her bed; she thinks Westwood is sexy. “Vivienne has this wildness about her. She does her own thing. But it’s really about her mind. She’s unique. She’s one of my favourite people.”

Westwood returns the compliment and says that Anderson is sexy not just for her body but for her inquisitive mind. “Pamela is very intelligent. She is somebody I can talk to. I don’t have to draw her a map. She understands,” she says.

The two new friends also support each other’s causes. Westwood, a human-rights activist, got Anderson to sign her petition to free the death-row prisoner Leonard Peltier. Anderson, a Peta spokesperson, wants Westwood to design an animal-friendly alternative to the bearskin caps worn by the guards at Buckingham Palace.

Westwood believes that there is far more to Anderson than her beach-babe image. Anderson agrees. “But don’t tell anyone,” she adds.

It is a typical remark. Anderson enjoys playing with and parodying her bimbo image. She understands better than anyone her power as an icon and, as these campy, vampy pictures show, she revels in it.

Juergen Teller/Vivienne Westwood S/S09 Election Day will be available at Vivienne Westwood stores from in April

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