Sew-cial at The Bowes
Unleash your creativity in our Vivienne Westwood–inspired sewing workshops. Each of the six sessions stands alone with a complete project, while together they form a creative journey exploring style, technique, and self-expression of stitches, samples and wearable art.
£55 per session, or book all six for £320. To book all six session, please contact the museum directly on 01833 690606.
Recommended for adults, spaces must be booked in advance. No additional equipment necessary. All levels of experience welcome.
Workshop 1: Wear Your Words: Slogan T-Shirts Inspired by Westwood
A creative workshop inspired by Vivienne Westwood and Andreas Kronthaler’s 2000s slogan T-shirts. Participants explore fashion as activism, design personal slogans and customise their own T-shirts using painting, stencilling, and embellishment techniques. The session blends art, identity, and protest, ending with a showcase of wearable self-expression.
Workshop 2: Rebel Heritage: Appliqué & Embellishment Inspired by The Orb Era (1986–1988)
A creative textiles session inspired by Vivienne Westwood’s Orb period (1986–1988), exploring identity through appliqué, embellishment, and free-motion embroidery. Participants reinterpret classic British motifs—tartan, tweed, the Orb logo—into bold, subversive fabric art pieces celebrating individuality and the playful clash between heritage and rebellion.
Workshop 3: The Mutineer Wrap: Draping Rebellion
Inspired by McClaren’s Pirates (1981), this session explores freedom and improvisation through draping. Participants will sculpt a wrap blouse from a single fabric rectangle, experimenting with ties, gathers, and asymmetry. The process celebrates deconstruction, romantic rebellion, and the tactile spontaneity that defined the punk-pirate aesthetic of early 1980s fashion.
Workshop 4: Storm-Stitched: The Eccentric Garden Bag
Inspired by Kronthaler’s Storm in a Teacup (1996/97), this workshop celebrates clashing tartans, bias cuts, and the beauty of fabric backs. Participants explore creative sewing techniques — combining machine stitching with expressive hand finishes — to craft a distinctive bag reflecting the playful unpredictability of an English garden party and Fables de la Fontaine.
Workshop 5: Rebel Reconstructed: Denim Punkature Workshop
Inspired by Malcolm McLaren’s Punkature (1983), participants will transform recycled denim into either a rebellious wrap skirt or patchwork vest. In this hands-on session, they’ll explore sustainable design through deconstruction, raw-edge finishing, visible stitching, patchwork layering, and creative fastening — celebrating imperfection, individuality, and punk’s DIY couture spirit.
Workshop 6: The Corseted T-Shirt – Deconstructed Street Corsetry
Inspired by Vivienne Westwood’s Pirate collection, this design transforms an oversized T-shirt into a rebellious corseted form. Combining drape and structure, it uses panel insertion, lacing, and raw-edge finishing. Techniques include eyelet setting, topstitching, asymmetric neckline shaping, and soft boning construction, merging historical corsetry with modern deconstructed streetwear aesthetics.
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