This spring, The Bowes Museum, home to one of the country’s most significant fashion collections, will host a major retrospective dedicated to Vivienne Westwood (1941–2022).
Focusing on Westwood’s iconic designs from the early 1980s to the 2000s, Vivienne Westwood: Rebel – Storyteller – Visionary celebrates the legacy of Britain’s most provocative and imaginative designer, whose influence continues to shape global fashion.
More than 40 ensembles, along with garments, accessories, jewellery and ephemera from the collection of Peter Smithson, will be joined by never-before-seen pieces from private collections, as well as loans from Manchester Art Gallery and the Fashion Museum Bath.
In the main exhibition space, curatorial design inspired by traditional salon hangs sees walls adorned with corsets, T-shirts, panelling, paintings and mirrors from The Bowes Museum’s collection. Westwood’s designs are displayed chronologically from the mid-1980s through to protest T-shirts from the early 2000s, charting her evolution as both designer and cultural provocateur.
The exhibition traces the development of the Vivienne Westwood label through the Worlds End, Westwood and Kronthaler years. Key milestones include the introduction of the orb logo, winning British Designer of the Year in 1990 and 1991, Westwood’s marriage to Andreas Kronthaler (b. 1966), and the restructuring of the brand into Gold and Red labels, reflecting shifts in design and production.
Westwood visited The Bowes Museum in 2006 as part of her research into historical dress. Reflecting this connection, the exhibition juxtaposes over 80 historic objects from the museum’s collection with her designs, highlighting shared influences and visual dialogues. Gilded mirror frames echo the theatrical sets of Voyage to Cythera (A/W 1989/90), while pieces from Portrait (A/W 1990/91), inspired by eighteenth-century art, are shown alongside Pierre Jacques Cazes’s La Naissance de Vénus – The Triumph of Venus.
Vicky Sturrs, Director of Programmes and Collections at The Bowes Museum, says: “Vivienne Westwood: Rebel – Storyteller – Visionary celebrates one of the most daring British designers in fashion history. Vivienne never lost her Northern roots, and her creativity still resonates strongly with this region.”
Rachel Whitworth, Curator (Fashion and Textiles), adds: “Westwood broke the rules, experimenting fearlessly with technique, proportion and historical reference.”
A public programme of workshops and talks will accompany the exhibition. The project is a collaboration between The Bowes Museum, Peter Smithson, private collectors, Manchester Art Gallery and Fashion Museum Bath, and is not an institutional partnership with the Vivienne Westwood brand.
For further information, head to thebowesmuseum.org.uk.
