Hollywood takes over the Palace
We review Kensington Palace’s new exhibition Crown to Couture
We at The Royal List love both history and fashion, so the two of us were excited to take a field trip to Kensington Palace for the launch of its new exhibition Crown to Couture, on Thursday.
Kensington Palace is one of our favourite royal palaces and has been the scene of many popular exhibitions in the past, including the sell-out Diana: Her Fashion Story in 2017. This year, it’s gone in a glittering new direction and turned over the State Apartments – the historic part of the palace - to the huge exhibition, in a kind of Met Gala-takeover.
It starts with a beautiful entrance sign which seems to rise out of the floor, with the statement, “Your outfit is your entry into a world of power and intrigue. What you wear, how you move, and who you meet all tell a story. It’s a high stakes game. There are prizes to be won, careers to be made, and fortunes to be lost.”
You then wander through the exhibition, which aims to marry the excesses of the Georgian court with modern red-carpet dressing. It’s the largest exhibition ever at Kensington Palace, with around 200 items on display, including in the King’s Gallery, to emulate what it would have been like in Georgian society at the time.
Curator Polly Putnam said, “Just as the designers of today dress celebrity royalty for important public events, Kensington Palace was home to the original red carpet of the Georgian court. Crown to Couture demonstrates the similarities in the fashion ‘rules’ set out by high-society designers, drawing fascinating comparisons between the present day and the 18th century.”
Highlights include the historic Silver Tissue Court Gown – the earliest-known English court dress from the 1660s, with its wide skirt, alongside Audrey Hepburn’s Givenchy dress she wore in Roman Holiday, plus the widest-surviving gown in Britain, a yellow court gown from 1760, with a three-metre wide skirt. You can see the enormous silver beauty kit Georgian ladies used to pamper themselves, plus fans, swords, jewellery, shoes, stockings, and corsets.
Alongside the historic items from the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection, are modern-day red-carpet looks such as Blake Lively’s Versace gown she unfurled at this year’s Met Gala, Kendall Jenner’s Givenchy dress from the 2021 Gala, Lady Gaga’s 2019 chandelier dress and – appropriately in the throne room - Beyonce’s Dundas goddess dress she wore to the 2017 Grammys.
There are stunning gowns on display and fashion fans will enjoy seeing them, but if we’re really honest, we’re not sure the balance works as well as the curators hoped. It’s much more couture than crown and by emptying out the State Apartments, all the history has gone, too. We would have liked to have seen more of the Georgian excess, balanced with the Met Gala. First-time visitors to Kensington Palace emerge without knowing anything about the palace they just walked through and if you’ve travelled a long way, this might be especially disappointing.
The last word went to the American family, who, as they duly completed the tour, went up to a steward to ask where Diana’s dress was…
For tickets, visit hrp.org.uk
Charles and Camilla’s bittersweet anniversary
This Easter is a poignant one for Their Majesties. Not only is it the first one without the late Queen but this Sunday is the couple’s 18th wedding anniversary and the date, in 2021, when Prince Philip died at Windsor Castle on 9 April. As members of the family gather there for an Easter Sunday service at St George’s Chapel, the occasion is bound to be an emotional one.
On a happier note, this week saw a new photograph released of Charles and Camilla, taken in Buckingham Palace’s Blue Drawing Room, and now used on all their social media accounts. Also, as illustrated on the beautiful Coronation invitation (see below), it was revealed that the ‘Consort’ part of Camilla’s title has been dropped. Camilla, like all other Queen Consorts before her, will simply be known as the Queen.
You’re invited…
This week, the palace released the invitation for the Coronation and what a thing of beauty it is. The 2000 guests to the May 6 event, have received an exquisite heraldic design by artist Andrew Jamieson, whose work is inspired by Arthurian legend.
The original artwork was hand-painted in watercolour and gouache and features the Green Man, the folkloric figure symbolising spring and rebirth, to represent the new reign. The Green Man is formed of leaves of oak, ivy and hawthorn, and the emblematic flowers of the United Kingdom. It also includes wildflowers and a lion, unicorn and a boar – taken from the coats of arms of Charles and Camilla’s father, Major Bruce Shand.
William plants family tree with Dad
The King and Prince of Wales marked the end of The Queen’s Green Canopy project by planting an Acer tree at Sandringham this week. The successful initiative, launched by Charles and the late Queen in May 2021, has seen over 3 million trees planted across the UK.
On Thursday, Charles and Camilla were at York Minster attending the Royal Maundy Service. This first one of Charles’s reign saw him presenting 74 men and 74 women (signifying the King’s age) with Maundy Money to thank them for helping their communities.
Fergie calls in corgi whisperer
Worried that Sandy and Muick had stopped wagging their tails, Sarah Ferguson says she called in a dog whisperer to help the late Queen’s beloved corgis.
“I went to a dog whisperer and said, ‘Now tell me about grief’. And he said, ‘At night just make sure they have their own space’,” she admitted on TV’s Loose Women this week. “So I do. Because I think they were grieving - their little tails went down. And I wanted to make them have waggy tails.”
And finally, in remembrance
As it’s the first Easter without Queen Elizabeth and two years to the day since we lost Prince Philip, we remember them with this lovely photo taken at Balmoral in 1972.
