Follow in fashion’s footsteps at The Bowes Museum

Monday 6th June: manic, manic, manic

It’s installation week here at The Bowes Museum and with only 4 days before Vivienne Westwood Shoes: An Exhibition 1973-2011 opens, there don’t seem to be enough hours in the day! The Fashion & Textile Gallery is buzzing – designers run around, men in hardhats build display cases, and three 1920’s Haute Couture dresses are relocated to make room for the 130 Vivienne Westwood shoes, which (we hope) are now on their way to us. After so many weeks of preparation, I can’t wait to finally see these gorgeous shoes up close (I am a girl after all!) and with so much still to do before Friday’s launch, they better hurry up and get here soon.

Tuesday 7th June: guess what… they’re here!

Unpacking the Vivienne Westwood shoes collection

This morning over 100 gorgeous Vivienne Westwood shoes arrived at The Bowes Museum, fresh from their exhibition in Beirut. We couldn’t be more excited to get them unpacked and see the fantastic collection that would soon be filling one side of the Fashion & Textile Gallery. As we get to work unpacking boxes and unwrapping shoes, Alex Krenn from Vivienne Westwood is making his way north to begin installing the exhibition. It’s now 5.00pm, almost all of the shoes are in place and the exhibition is really beginning to take shape. From all those visitors lucky enough to get a sneaky peaky at the work in progress, there was consensus… it looks amazing. I have to agree – and it’s not even finished yet!

Wednesday 8th June: calm before the storm?

Having anticipated craziness today, it’s surprisingly calm here at The Bowes Museum! There are now more than 100 Vivienne Westwood shoes

The finishing touches

on display in the Gallery. Alex is making his final artistic adjustments – moving shoes this way and that, securing them with double-sided tape, and adding hand-written labels. The lighting designers are busy up their ladders, repositioning spotlights to show off these little sculptures to best effect, meanwhile, I’m being snap happy! In the absence of our museum photographer it’s fallen to me to document, for posterity (and this blog), the installation of what is rapidly turning out to be a truly stunning exhibition. I’ve been working on this project for weeks and I don’t know what I expected but it’s safe to say that I never thought shoes could look this fantastic.

Thursday 9th June: paparazzi!

It’s the Vivienne Westwood Exhibition press launch at The Bowes Museum today. By the time I arrive the Fashion & Textile Gallery is already filling up with photographers, cameramen and journalists brandishing notebooks. I’m slightly at a loss as to what to do, other than stand guard and make sure no one disturbs the perfectly arranged shoes. Joanna Hashagen, Keeper of Textiles, has just finished her appearance on ITV’s flagship Daybreak programme and is being trailed by a gaggle of journalists and photographers. Then someone asks if they can take my photograph – turns out he’s from the Press Association and within 20 minutes I’ve done an on-camera interview, been photographed moving shoes without actually moving them and agreed to record a radio interview. While all this is going on, technicians are attempting to hoist enormous blow-ups of Dame Vivienne and a tumbling Naomi Campbell into position around the gallery, then the acrylic panels arrive… good job we work well under pressure!

Friday 10th June: D-Day!

The famous 'Naomi Campbell' shoe

Its official… Vivienne Westwood Shoes: An Exhibition, is open to the public! If I’m honest there were times when it seemed like it would never happen, but it has, and it’s busy (someone even arrived at 8.30 – an hour and half before the Museum opens) And we’re in all the papers, even the LA Times. We should all be able to relax, but there’s still the small matter of this evening’s exclusive launch party. In a few hours, 400+ specially invited guests will descend upon The Bowes Museum, consume copious amounts of fizz and canapés and (we hope) fall in love with the exhibition and tell all their friends to come visit. I’m excited, we all are, but at this point I’m running on adrenaline and too much caffeine… the thought of adding champagne and lots of glamorous fashionistas to the mix is slightly daunting.

Saturday 11^th June

Well I guess that’s it! The exhibition is open, last night’s launch party was an unprecedented success and so far everyone loves the shoes. Fingers-crossed that over the next four weeks there’ll be lots more visitors to The Bowes Museum who love them too.

Louise Cooling – The Bowes Museum

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