Kate Middleton’s royal wedding dress has gone on display at the annual opening of the State rooms at Buckingham Palace this summer.
For the next ten weeks the public will get a chance to gawp at the Grace-Kelly inspired gown along with the shoes, earrings, and a mock-up of the bouquet from Kate’s big day.
The wedding cake will also be on show but the exhibition’s curator, Caroline de Guitaut, told the Daily Telegraph that the newly Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have held on to the top layer of their wedding cake which is customarily used as a christening cake for the first baby born to them.
But it is the frock, made of ivory and white satin gazar featuring lace applique and floral detail which will be the main attraction.
Designer Sarah Burton, creative director at Alexander McQueen said of the dress: “What we wanted to achieve was something that was incredibly beautiful and intricately worked. A lot of it was in the subtlety of the detail but it was at Westminster Abbey so it still had to have a presence,” she said.
“The Duchess was very conscious that when she walked down the aisle she didn’t want the dress to collapse so it was a real feat of engineering. We weighted the whole of the bottom part of the dress with canvas, and in particular the middle (of the train) so when we lifted the dress it would fall back in exactly the same position.”
Security at the exhibition will be tight as the dress will not be shielded behind glass to allow visitors to get close and have a proper gander at the intricate needlework.
More than half a million people are expected to turn out to see the dress.
