Hello and welcome back to the Historic Royal Palaces podcast, the podcast that tells the history and stories of our six palaces.

My name is Matthew Story. I'm a curator here at the palaces and today we have the first episode in the series where we're celebrated fashion identity and the opening of our new exhibition at Kensington Palace called Crown to Couture.

Crown to Couture explores the parallels between the 18th century Georgian court and today's red carpet,

how getting ready in the 18th century the court really wasn't that different

from how celebrities are styled and prepared for the red carpet today.

We'll be exploring all these themes and more over the course of the next four episodes.

But today I'm joined by two of my favourite colleagues, Polly Putnam and Claudia Aikort Williams.

Polly and Claudia are the curators on the team that have brought the Crown to Couture exhibition to life at Kensington Palace.

And I'm thrilled that they're joining us today to talk all things fashion.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you for having us, Matthew.

So to kick us off, Polly and Claudia, very briefly, because we are going to talk more on this later.

But why this exhibition? Why Crown to Couture?

Polly.

It sort of happened by accident.

So it was the Tuesday after the first Monday in May, which we all know, or fashiony people know,

is the day after the Met Gala. And there happened to be an exhibitions meeting. I think you were

at that one, were you, Matthew? I was, yes, I remember it. And more or less I just said, well, Georgian Court, it's a little bit like the Metgarder, isn't it?

So it's kind of as simple as that, but I think kind of for people who know about the Georgian Court, once you say it, I think the parallels become quite obvious.

And then Alari, the previous curator, the RCDC, decided that she wanted to co-curate it with me.

And actually, she was better place because she was kind of good at contemporary fashion.

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