Kensington Palace is rich with
three hundred years of British history and extraordinary stories. The lives of the kings and queens, dukes and princesses who lived here are
filled with love and loss, joy and jealousy.
Enchanted Palace represents a new collaboration between fashion designers, artists and the colourful and dramatic past of Kensington Palace; for the first time, designers and artists have been challenged to use the incredible stories of the people who lived in the palace as the springboard for
stunning installations in the Enchanted Palace.
Chris Levine
An artist of light, who is intrigued not only by its visual beauty but also its sensory energy and spiritual dimension. Chris Levine trained at both Central St Martins and the Chelsea School of Design. His work is thought provoking and compelling, brilliantly demonstrating the transformational power of light.
Chris’s work has explored the potential of lasers, LEDs and holograms as artistic media. His varied output has included creations for Selfridges and the Eden Project, as well as collaborations with Mario Testino and Swarovski. This is not the first time royalty has been the subject matter of Chris's work either; in 2004 he produced Equamity, the first hologram of Her Majesty, the Queen to commemorate 800 years of the island of Jersey’s allegiance to the crown
Kensington’s State Apartments have always been transformed by light, from the glittering sparkle of thousands of flickering candles flames to the velvety shadows cast over the grand entrance stairs on a winter’s evening. Chris’s work for the Enchanted Palace resonates with echoes of these historical light transformations, offering an enthralling contemporary response to Kensington’s remarkable history.
Jane Darke
Painter and filmmaker Jane Darke shares her north Cornish home with an extraordinary collection of sea-borne objects; everything from plastic lobster pot tags to seedpods from South America. Jane’s husband, the playwright Nick Darke, came from a family of wreckers, or beachcombers. Over the years he collected a vast array of objects, carried by the sea and washed up on the surrounding beaches, slowly building up a treasure trove within their home. The wild, rugged beauty of Cornwall has been central to work of both Nick and Jane and the formation of their collection was the subject of Jane’s quietly powerful film The Wrecking Season.
For the Enchanted Palace part of this wonderfully eclectic collection has made its way up to Kensington to form part of our cabinet of curiosities, now transformed into a cabinet from the sea. Cabinets of curiosities emerged in Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe as a way of making sense of the unknown world. For their creators they were also things of beauty and wonder, to be marvelled at and enjoyed. Delving into the beautiful, strange and intriguing collection of Nick and Jane Darke, all neatly ordered and arranged, offers a contemporary echo of those historic cabinets, with their rich and rare treasures.
Bruce Oldfield
Since launching his own label in 1975, Bruce Oldfield has had a reputation for designing elegant and stylish evening wear adored by Hollywood stars and international royalty. His clients have included Catherine Zeta Jones, Sienna Miller, Jerry Hall, and Queen Rania of Jordan but his most famous client was undoubtedly Diana, Princess of Wales. For over a decade Oldfield, who trained at Central St Martins, was one of Princess Diana's favourite designers and had an instinct for creating the sophisticated occasionwear that added a new glamour to the young princess.
Oldfield’s skilfully constructed and draped dress in the Enchanted Palace represents another stylish and graceful Kensington princess.
