Rebellion and tradition meet in Vivienne Westwood’s new show

In an infamous TV car accident episode from 1988, Vivienne Westwood was interviewed (and much mocked) by Sue Lawley on a BBC talk show. Wogan. The studio audience, encouraged by the speaker, laughs hysterically throughout the clip, as several models, including choreographer Michael Clark and Westwood muse Sara Stockbridge, appear wearing looks from the A/W 1988 collection, Time Machine. Peter Smithson, who was ten years old at the time, was completely amazed. “I didn’t know who Vivienne Westwood was, but I distinctly remember seeing the models and thinking she was very beautiful,” she says today. ‘I wanted to feel the joy and confidence they had on their faces.’

Standing in the main exhibition space at the Bowes Museum in County Durham, where ‘Vivienne Westwood: Rebel – Storyteller – Visionary’ has just opened (until 6 September 2026), an assistant curator of science, and a major Westwood collector of 30 years, is surrounded by mannequins wearing her pieces for Gathyst and the Manchester museum. private collectors have also lent items, but the Smithsonian collection is the most prominent).

‘Vivienne Westwood: Rebel – Storyteller – Vision’ at the Bowes Museum

Curated in collaboration with the museum’s Rachel Whitworth, the new retrospective features 40 complete ensembles as well as framed garments, shoes, accessories, invitations and magazine covers, and spills over into the fashion and textile museum where rolls of fabric, sewing machines and calico toilets create a working centre. In the main space, where Westwood’s designs from the mid-80s to the 2000s are displayed in sequence, a series of paintings, sculptures, armor and other objects from the museum’s vast collection are woven into the exhibition building, giving the impression of a traditional salon.

“The best parts of his seminal collection are where he has the perfect mix of history, art and culture,” Smithson continued, highlighting Westwood’s deep love for the visual arts. ‘What he does is weave it in a random way with that golden thread of the story. And that’s what I was interested in, when I finished the story.’ Indeed, the designer, who died aged 81 in 2022, was particularly passionate about 18th-century art, advocated the museum as a place of learning, and fondly described the Wallace Collection in London as “the greatest school of art in the country”. Her relationship with the Bowes Museum began in 2006, when she attended the opening of ‘Fine & Fashionable: Lace from the Blackbourne Collection’, as she contributed three dresses to the exhibition; an international touring exhibition, ‘Vivienne Westwood Shoes: An Exhibition 1973-2011’, followed in 2011.

While the new show is largely designed with a holistic look, Smithson notes that each piece is individually designed. His first official purchase as a collector, after wearing the designer ‘to death’ in his early twenties, was a colorful crown with faux ermine trim from the A/W 1987 collection, ‘Harris Tweed’ (Stockbridge wore a similar version to Wogan in 1988). ‘It’s as Westwood as it comes,’ says Smithson. ‘With that collection, Westwood wanted to make a kind of romantic play of all things English and classy; she produced it on two domestic sewing machines in a council flat. That one look features five distinct Westwood pieces: a crown, designed by Stephen Jones, a faux fur cape, her Stature of Liberty corset, a beehive crinoline. It’s really important.’

Elsewhere he points to a ‘Portrait’ look. collection (A/W 1990), which Westwood returned to the Wallace Collection. ‘Those the pieces are timeless, but the level of thought you put into things. He wanted to represent every part of the 18th century painting, and so he produced a large silk scarf, because when the models walked on the catwalk, the silk moved as if it were the same as the paint,’ he says, thinking of the ‘Shepherd’ print scarf with François Boucher’s. Daphnis and Chloe (1743). On the Boulle print moleskin dress, shown with a scarf and three strands of pearls, she explains that ‘Westwood put the ink on a thick velvet dress and let it dry, so that when the velvet was stretched, the gold ink could be broken to wait for decorating the frames.

‘This is what became known in the early 1990s as the main boy looked,’ Smithson continues, standing next to the ‘Voyage to Cythera’ outfit. (A/W 1989). The collection takes its name from Jean-Antoine Watteau’s Beginning of Cytherapainted in 1717 and showing the new carefree attitude that emerged from the darkness of Louis XIV’s death in 1715; the look in question captures the spirit of the place, with fig leaf tees, a ‘Princess’ leopard jacket and a white ‘Principle Boy’ shirt with frame details. ‘It’s a very classic, fun piece of Westwood design. I don’t know if anyone else would think of taking flesh colored tires and putting a Perspex fig leaf on top of them. But they are all pieces of art [the clothes in the show]and they have stories to tell. I like to think they live at night and have a good party.’