London’s Kensington Palace has become The Enchanted Palace in a unique multisensory exhibition combining fashion, performance and dazzling spectacle to reveal the venue’s magnificent state apartments in a magical new light.
Independent charity Historic Royal Palaces is undertaking a £12-million ($18-million) project to transform Kensington Palace by 2012. During this transition, acclaimed UK Theatre Company Wildworks will cast a spell over the palace, creating a mysterious and atmospheric world for visitors to explore and bringing the hidden stories of the historic royal residence dramatically to life.
In the sumptuous state apartments, leading fashion designers Vivienne Westwood, William Tempest, Stephen Jones, Boudicca, Aminaka Wilmont and illustrator/set designer Echo Morgan will each create spectacular installations in collaboration with Wildworks, taking inspiration from Kensington Palace and the princesses who once lived there - Mary, Anne, Caroline, Charlotte, Victoria, Margaret and Diana. These extraordinary contemporary designs will be displayed alongside historic items from the Royal Collection and Kensington Palace’s Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection, together with two dresses worn by Diana, Princess of Wales and Princess Margaret.
The complex and mysterious world of the royal court will be opened up through spectacular installations, interactive theatre, intimate storytelling, soundscapes, haunting film projections and a series of intriguing clues hidden throughout the historic rooms, revealing tales of love and hate, surprise and sadness, secrets and jealousy.
Each room will have a powerful story to tell about Kensington Palace’s former royal residents and the life of the court - a world within a world, with its own time and rituals from Queen Mary II’s bedchamber to the king’s grand staircase.
The project, ‘Welcome to Kensington – a palace for everyone’, will be completed by June 2012, in time for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics.