Vivienne Westwood collection coming soon to County Durham museum

A County Durham museum will be showcasing a classic collection from a fashion icon next month.

Rachel Whitworth, The Bowes Museum’s curator of fashion and textiles, said the museum were excited to display Vivienne Westwood’s famous clothing at its next capsule collection this July.

She said the museum were afforded the opportunity after being approached by a collector from Cumbria, Peter Smithson, who has been amassing his collection for 30 years.

The collector was most interested in the period from the mid-80s to the 90s where Westwood set up on her own following her work with Malcolm McLaren.

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Ms Whitworth said: “It’s a brilliant opportunity for us because we don’t have much Westwood in the permanent collection.

“It’s a great opportunity to display her design. Obviously, they are very well-known and very popular.

“The other brilliant thing about having them here is that there are so many parallels with the permanent collection.

“Not just fashion and textiles, but decorative arts and furnitures and paintings as well.

“She took so much inspiration from Britain’s history but also European history and from the decorative arts in general.

“What we’re doing with the display is to draw out those parallels by displaying things from The Bowes collection alongside Vivienne Westwood, but also pointing people in the direction of things in the gallery that show where she got her inspiration from.”

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She added she believes the collection is more in focus previously after Westwood’s death last year as more people look to examine her work.

Adding to this, the exhibit will showcase eight “essential looks” in the period between the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s.

The motivation behind this is to show a timeline of how her designs developed and give a view of the iconic fashion of that period.

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The museum will be displaying corsets, t-shirts, hats, shoes and jewellery all designed by the celebrated designer.

Ms Whitworth said her favourite piece was a black velvet catsuit from the Portrait Collection from 1990-91.

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She said she loves the velvet-printed with gold ink design, specifically the Boulle work style incorporated into the work.

The exhibition is slated to open on July 22 to the public and will be on display in the Fashion and Textile Gallery until February 4 2024.

Here are some of the pictures showing off the collection: