Joséphine: a woman of taste and fashion, a new exhibition celebrating The Bowes Museum co-founder’s taste as a collector of textiles, and her personal interest in fashion, is set to open 22 March 2025.

Located in the Fashion & Textile Gallery, it will complement the larger exhibition, From Joséphine Bowes: Trendsetters and Trailblazers, that recently opened on 8 February 2025. The two exhibitions will offer an insight into Joséphine’s innovative, mixed-genre approach to collecting, and this special display will focus on the textile acquisitions made by Joséphine and John Bowes, and Joséphine’s interest in contemporary fashion.

Visitors to the County Durham museum can expect to see an eclectic display of floor to ceiling textiles in the Fashion & Textile Gallery, showcasing the variety and breadth of Joséphine’s collecting in this area. There will be an array of woven and embroidered chair covers from the rich selection which Joséphine acquired, alongside ecclesiastical textiles, lace, and items purchased for the museum at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1867.

Surviving items of clothing and accessories belonging to Joséphine Bowes will also be displayed for the first time in several years, alongside other example of historic dress from the 1850s and 1860s. Archival material relating to her purchases will be on show, offering a personal insight into the items she owned and wore during her lifetime, and her interest in fashion.

The historical items will be punctuated by more recent examples of French haute couture, including those purchased with Art Fund’s New Collecting Award in 2015, and with contributions from the Friends of The Bowes Museum. Pieces by iconic twentieth-century designers including Elsa Schiaparelli (1890 – 1973) and Yves Saint Laurent (1936 – 2008), were acquired in the spirit of what Joséphine might have worn had she lived in the 20th and 21st centuries. They will be shown alongside items by French designers Jacques Fath (1912 – 1954), Jeanne Paquin (1869 – 1936), Madeleine Vionnet (1876 – 1975), and hats by Simone Mirman (1912 – 2008).

This special display will also site the arrival of French fashions in the North East of England, only a decade after Joséphine Bowes’ death in 1874, when John James Fenwick (1846-1905), founder of Fenwick department store in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1882, began to bring examples of couture over from Paris in the mid-1880s.

A series of events have also been confirmed to coincide with the exhibition, free with day admission or membership, for textile, fashion and history enthusiasts to enjoy. Curator of Fashion and Textiles, Rachel Whitworth will lead monthly Spotlight Tours, offering a 30-minute introduction to the exhibition and overview of the display highlights. Three themed talks in The Curator Series will focus on Joséphine Bowes’ love of fashion, her textile acquisitions, and the history of French fashion.

Rachel Whitworth, Curator of Fashion and Textiles at The Bowes Museum commented:

“This exciting exhibition, entirely drawn from The Bowes Museum’s permanent collection, is an opportunity to celebrate Joséphine Bowes as a woman both of and ahead of her time. She was a discerning collector of textiles and purchased clothes from the most fashionable couturiers and dressmakers of her time. The museum has sought to build on her legacy with examples of work by some of the most significant French designers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Many of the items in the exhibition have not been displayed before and provide fresh insights into the formation of the museum.”

With Joséphine Bowes (1825-1874) at the heart of The Bowes Museum’s programming this year, it will celebrate her bi-centennial year and legacy as an artist, collector, patron of the arts, and co-creator of The Bowes Museum.