Luxury Brands Play Key Supporting Role During Platinum Jubilee Weekend
LONDON – British and international luxury brands, including Burberry, Charlotte Tilbury and Mo?t & Chandon, played a small, but significant, role in the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, which culminated Sunday afternoon with a pageant in central London, and an appearance by Queen Elizabeth on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
Those brands were among the “Platinum Partners,” or top supporters, of the pageant, along with Jaguar, Land Rover, Lloyds Bank, and others. They joined a host of other backers such as Sotheby’s, Fortnum & Mason, Boodles, and mass names such as Meta, McDonalds and Cadbury, which also contributed to the event.
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The pageant began at Whitehall on Sunday afternoon and made its way through Admiralty Arch and up The Mall. The finale took place just outside Buckingham Palace around the Queen Victoria Memorial. The queen, along with Prince Charles, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and other senior royals appeared on the balcony to wave to the crowds.
Celebrities from a variety of industries took part in the three-hour event, including Ed Sheeran, Heston Blumenthal, Jeremy Irons and Gok Wan. In the works for many months, the event was similar to the opening and closing extravaganzas of The London 2012 Summer Olympics.
RICHARD LEA-HAIR
While the British government earmarked 28 million pounds for many of the Jubilee events, Sunday’s pageant was the result of private fundraising efforts by the Platinum Jubilee Pageant Ltd. company. It was estimated to have cost 15 million pounds.
As part of its support for the Jubilee weekend, Burberry has also teamed with Historic Royal Palaces to support Superbloom, an immersive floral display that encircles the Tower of London.
The brand contributed two original, immersive outdoor installations: a large, floating Burberry-branded meadow that is moored directly across from the Tower of London, on the Thames, and an art wall made by the digital artist Jon Emmony, which is on display at the entrance of Superbloom.
The brand also teamed with primary school children to create artwork and messages for the queen, marking her many decades on the throne. It worked with children at Armley Park Primary School in Leeds, near to Burberry’s Yorkshire factories.
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The children’s creations have been enlarged and displayed on more than 80 bus stops throughout central London, where the Platinum Jubilee Pageant took place.
Tilbury, meanwhile, was the official beauty partner of the Platinum Jubilee Pageant, and has also created themed collections and accessories to mark the occasion.
The makeup artist and entrepreneur said the queen’s reign “has seen the most incredible transformations in the way that we live our lives. Throughout it all, our queen has embraced change, captured our hearts, and led our country with pride through seven immense decades. I want to celebrate (her) timeless beauty, grace and dedication.”
Another luxury name provided creative inspiration, rather than financial support, during the Jubilee celebrations: the queen’s longtime couturier Norman Hartnell.
Hartnell’s design for the queen’s coronation dress is the centerpiece of Superbloom at the Tower of London, which runs until September.
Known as the Queen’s Garden, it has been installed in the Tower’s Bowling Green, and features a combination of meadow flowers, topiary and summer-flowering perennials, bulbs and ornamental grasses.
Developed by Grant Associates, lead designers for the Superbloom project, the garden draws on the colors, shapes and motifs deployed by Hartnell in the 1953 gown.
The display features 12 cast glass forms by the artist Max Jacquard that represent the national emblems in Hartnell’s design. In the center of these motifs is a glass crown, which is meant to be a reminder of the Tower’s role as home of the Crown Jewels.
Image Courtesy of Buckingham Palace
According to Matthew Storey, collections curator at Historic Royal Palaces, the charity that manages state properties including Hampton Court Palace, the Tower of London and Kensington Palace, the garden’s design is based on the “tiers of embroidery” on the coronation dress.
The glass is meant to lend “sparkle” to the display, and to echo the sequin and crystal shimmer of the original design.
Storey said the 27-year-old queen, who was crowned on June 2, 1953, was adamant that the symbols on her coronation dress be correct. Hartnell had originally suggested floral emblems from Great Britain, but Her Majesty was thinking bigger, and had wanted to acknowledge the Commonwealth countries, too.
The result of their conversations was a white duchess satin gown with floral emblems representing the queen’s nine dominions, Britain and the Commonwealth regions, picked out in shiny threads, seed pearls, sequins and crystals.
Hartnell even included the decidedly unglamorous leek to represent Wales, and added an extra four-leaf shamrock on the left side of the skirt for good luck, so that Elizabeth’s hand could rest on it during the historic ceremony.
Image Courtesy of Buckingham Palace
While luxury brands have played a big role during the Jubilee, the film industry, and the Paddington Bear franchise in particular, took a star turn on Saturday night in a surprise skit starring the queen.
“Happy Jubilee, Ma’am, and thank you … for everything,” said the bear, tipping his red hat to the queen, whom he discovered also carries a marmalade sandwich with her in case of emergency.
The two were filmed having tea at Windsor Palace. At one point, the queen pulls a big sandwich out of her signature black handbag. “I keep mine in here for later,” she told the bear.
The skit, with Paddington voiced by Ben Whishaw, kicked off the Party at the Palace concert on Saturday night, which saw musical performances from Queen, Duran Duran, Alicia Keys, Stefflon Don and Rod Stewart live at Buckingham Palace.
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