00:00Hi I'm Danielle Stacey, HELLO's online Royal Correspondent and we're here at
00:04Kensington Palace to see the Crowns of Couture exhibition. Come and take a look.
00:25Hi I'm Polly Putnam, I'm Curator of Collections at Historic Royal Palaces.
00:30So we're at the Crowns of Couture exhibition at Kensington Palace. What story do you want to convey to visitors
00:36when they come here?
00:37So the thing for me is just to see how similar this sort of obscure area of history, sort of
00:43the 18th century Royal Court, not something that we are taught about at school but really come to understand and
00:49love it like I do through the contemporary lens of the red carpet.
00:53And what inspires the Crowns of Couture exhibition?
00:56So there happened to be an exhibition meeting the Tuesday after the first Monday in May, which is of course
01:03the Met Gala, back in 2018.
01:05And I sort of said sort of casually, do you know, it was a bit like court. And so there's
01:11that immediate visual connection.
01:13So dresses on the red carpet are massive, dresses worn at courts are equally massive.
01:18So there are these visual connections. But the more we researched, the more we found areas where actually, gosh, there
01:25are these real similarities which we'd love to draw out in an exhibition.
01:28And it's quite an immersive exhibition. It really takes you through what it must have been like to get ready
01:34for court and in a similar vein, what it's like to get ready for the Met Gala.
01:38Yes, the getting ready bits are some of my favourite bits of the exhibition. So one of the things that
01:44really fascinates me is that today we have all these social media videos of celebrities getting ready.
01:51And weirdly, it was also quite a public thing in the 18th century. So women of a certain social standing
01:57would be given amazing silver toilet services, which are far prettier than they needed to be.
02:04But they were actually objects which were all about show. So it was actually kind of a public event, but
02:10also quite a power play.
02:12So come and watch me get ready for five or six hours in my most intimate space.
02:17And one of the stand up pieces in that getting ready room is that incredibly sparkling dress that Kendall Jenner
02:23wore. Can you talk us through that piece?
02:25Yes, so it's by Givenchy and it's actually based on Audrey Hepburn from the final scenes in My Fair Lady.
02:34And Audrey Hepburn is such an important figure in this exhibition.
02:37So we have her dress that she wants to collect her 1954 Oscar for Roman Holiday, which was also designed
02:45by Givenchy.
02:46And that actually works, marks the first sort of designer celebrity collaboration. So we have that kind of origins of
02:54designer meet celebrity on the red carpet in this exhibition.
02:58And we see it through to today and that beautiful sparkling Givenchy gown worn by Kendall Jenner.
03:04We're standing in the room with Beyonce's Grammys dress. Can you talk us through the finer details of this piece?
03:10Oh, this is a wonderful gown worn at the 2017 Grammys. It's by Peter Dundas and it's embroidered with lots
03:18of symbolism of gods and goddesses.
03:21And it's presenting her as Apollo, god of the sun and also goddesses of fertility, because obviously she's pregnant when
03:28she wears this dress.
03:29And so it's just the most beautifully made thing. And what I like is that it's her as sort of
03:35a sun god Apollo.
03:36And we've put it in the room where on the ceiling we have the sun god Apollo as well.
03:42So there are kind of just so many beautiful connections that we've tried to bring through in this show.
03:48There is another connection. Is it one of Billy Porter's outfits? And I believe that Giles Deacon was inspired by
03:55the very room that it's situated in.
03:57Yes. So this exhibition was a long time in the making and we approached Billy Porter's stylist, Sam Rattel, because
04:03he wanted to borrow some of the items for this show.
04:06He came to the palace and thought it was absolutely wonderful. Who can blame him?
04:10And then he said, right, Billy Porter's Oscars dress has to be inspired by the palace.
04:14So he brought on Giles Deacon, one of the great British couturiers, and they created this dress, which was based
04:21on the cupola room in Kensington Palace.
04:23We've got a huge lineup of A-listers in the King's Gallery. Can you talk us through some of the
04:28pieces in there, including Billie Eilish?
04:30I really love Billie Eilish's Oscar de la Renta 2021 gown. It's absolutely enormous.
04:41And I interviewed her stylist for the magazine and Dina said, she said to me, I want it to be
04:48so big that I can't help be noticed.
04:51And it really is enormous. And actually for me, what's amazing is that these dresses are enormous, but you put
04:57them in the palace and actually they don't seem quite so big.
05:00And there are a lot of statement pieces in this exhibition, including the Katy Perry chandelier gown. Are you able
05:06to talk us through the details on that?
05:07Yes. So this was designed by Jeremy Scott of Moschino. It was worn by Katy Perry for the 2019 Met
05:16Gala and the theme was camp.
05:18And it's pretty, it's pretty camp, isn't it? But also it's just the most exquisitely made things. So it's blown
05:24glass and crystal.
05:26And so I just think for, and it was only worn for a few moments on the red carpet. And
05:32so this kind of hours of preparation for a few moments is something absolutely incredible.
05:37Wow. What an incredible immersive experience. Come and check out Crown to Couture at Kensington Palace from April 5th. You
05:44won't want to miss it.
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