Rachel Whitworth of the Bowes Museum: Making Meaning Podcast Episode 59

In this episode I’m talking to Rachel Whitworth, the curator of Fashion and Textiles at The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle. 

I’ve been working with Rachel recently to bring several of their Mary Linwood pieces to my exhibition in Leicester, and previously visited them in the museum stores to study and understand them better. Rachel started her career at the Museum of Costume, Bath, and has also worked for the National Trust at Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire.  The Bowes Museum is a wonderful place with an incredible textile and fashion collection. As well as the Mary Linwoods they have a great quilt collection at The Bowes Museum and Rachel helped me with my research a few years ago on trapunto or corded quilting.  In this conversation we talk about how The Bowes Museum came about, why they have such an amazing fashion and textile collection and what Rachel finds so special about the objects and stories they can tell. 

Rachel Whitworth is Curator (Fashion & Textiles) at The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle and has been in
post since 2022. She started her career at the Museum of Costume, Bath, and has also worked for the
National Trust at Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire.

The museum was founded by Joséphine (1825-1874) and John Bowes (1811-1885). They started acquiring items around 1861 and amassed 15,000 objects in 15 years, including European paintings, ceramics, sculpture, decorative arts and textiles. Since it opened in 1892, The Bowes Museum has built on the legacy of its founders, displaying their collection and expanding it with the addition of local history and
antiquities, British decorative arts, toys, costume and quilts.
The current exhibitions in the Fashion & Textile Gallery mark two bicentenaries – Joséphine: a Woman of Taste and Fashion, celebrating Joséphine Bowes’ 200th birthday, and Dressed for Departure: Fashion in the Age of Rail, for the 200th anniversary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway. Coming up in 2026, The Bowes Museum is staging a major fashion exhibition, Vivienne Westwood: Rebel – Storyteller – Visionary, and showcasing the Blackborne lace collection to mark the 20th anniversary of its arrival at the museum.

Some of my own photos taken in The Bowes Museum Fashion and Textile gallery

Links

https://thebowesmuseum.org.uk/

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