Kensington Palace in London is getting an upgrade. Yep, you read it right. The famous royal residence is going through a little creative surgery to make it more accessible and appealing to the curious public.
A slew of UK designers like Vivienne Westwood, Aminaka Wilmont, and illustrator Echo Morgan have been pooling their creative juices to produce installations that will transform the State Apartments of the castle from an antiquated space into an inspiring “Enchanted Forest.”
Wildworks, the landscape theatre company, is working with the nonprofit Historic Royal Palaces to turn the palace into something that is magical through art and creativity. Their vision? To create a place where people from all over the world can learn the stories of the real-life princesses and princes that walked the halls of the palace.
Rooms within “The Enchanted Palace” will be themed according to lives of some of some well-known leaders of the royal courts. And there are already talks about what some of the rooms will look like. Of course, with designers such as Westwood and other labels like Boudicca at the helm, nothing short of exquisite perfection is expected.
One of the rooms will be decorated with a so-called “dress of tears” created by Wilmont, as a representation of Queen Mary’s inability to have a child. She had 14 unsuccessful pregnancies and the dress is representative of her pain.
Other creative rooms include Westwood’s interpretation of the rebellious nature Princess Charlotte, for which she created garb dedicated to the daughter of King George IV and Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, called “dress for the rebellious princess.”
According to Wildworks, the project extravaganza is said to cost $16 million and will open on March 26 and run all through the year until January 2011.
