Who speaks for Vivienne Westwood today? The brand, the halls of museums, or the obsessive few with enough material to out-archive the above? At the Bowes Museum, it’s all in plain sight. Really. Peter Smithson and a few notoriously secretive collectors just let nearly 40 ensembles, solo garments, shoes, accessories, and editorial ephemera decorate the museum’s Fashion and Textiles gallery. With curator Rachel Whitworth lending a firm hand, the handover now goes by the name of ‘Vivienne Westwood: Rebel – Storyteller – Visionary,’ and it’ll hold onto it until September 6.
Rebel for the politics and punk culture, storyteller for the narratives corsetry and tartan carried, and visionary because decades later, we’re still glued to them. The retrospective, though, focuses on the early 1980s to 2000s, following her early partnership with Malcolm McLaren and into the era where a pirate jacket still had the power to challenge what fashion could be. Not that Bowes is new to this, Westwood herself has walked these galleries before. By now, they sure know how to host her work.
Remember when Westwood showed the English upper class a fun time with the ‘Harris Tweed’ A/W 1987 collection? That crown you think of, that comfortably rested on top of her head while pedaling around the city, was one of Smithson’s first buys. You can see the rest for yourself. Crinolines (first introduced in Spring 1986), tailoring, checks, and one too many corsets.
In 1988, Westwood appeared on Wogan, interviewed by Sue Lawley as models, including Sara Stockbridge, walked out in her designs and the audience laughed along. Ten-year-old Smithson wasn’t in on the joke. The realization came a few years later in Manchester, when a man walked out of a store in a tartan suit and bondage trousers, completely at ease. Once the red canopy and yellow lettering came into focus, it was obvious. “At that moment, I looked at her and thought, it’s Westwood. She’s the one I’ve been admiring all along,” he tells The Guardian. Bet that wouldn’t get a laugh today.
