Show draws almost entirely from collection of Lancashire schoolteacher Peter Smithson, a fan since he was 10
Peter Smithson’s wife, Belise, has never minded when he receives a corset from Japan or a pair of fur-trimmed knickers and they are not for her.
“No, she’s never seen it as strange,” said Smithson, a chemistry teacher and Vivienne Westwood supercollector. “She has never judged it. She gets it. She knows it is part and parcel of who I am.”
Smithson is speaking at a preview of a major fashion exhibition that draws almost entirely upon his incredible private collection, built up over 30 years.
There are more than 40 ensembles from his collection on display at the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, County Durham. The gallery spaces are a blizzard of tartan tweed, dazzling harlequin print, faux-fur coats, oversized velvet crowns and mirrored fig-leaf tights, which Smithson acknowledges would not be everyone’s choice for a night out.
