Experience the Elegance and Grandeur of the Royal Coronation

While the eyes of the world are on the coronation of Charles III and Camilla at Westminster Abbey on May 6, Santa Barbara will get its own little piece of pomp and circumstance with a never-before-seen Coronation Couture exhibition presented by the Couture Pattern Museum as a free pop-up both on May 4 and June 1, from 5-8 p.m. at WorkZones in Paseo Nuevo, as part of the 1st Thursday Art Walk.

Couture Pattern Museum Founder Cara Austine and her team estimate they’ll have put more than 1,000 hours into putting together the show by the time it’s mounted. Among the rare items on display are full-sized revivals of a traditional Viscountess/Baroness coronation gown and robe, each designed by the legendary Norman Hartnell, the Queen’s dressmaker, and the original patterns they were created from, “which may be the only ones that exist in the world today. So it’s very, very rare and unique,” says Austine, who was inspired to put together this exhibition after Queen Elizabeth passed away. 

“I had this coronation gown pattern already in the database. And I got this phone call from an award-winning couture seamstress in London, who happened to have a coronation robe pattern,” says Austine, whose privately held teaching museum and historical dressmaking atelier oversees one of the world’s largest and most significant collections of commercial haute couture and high-fashion sewing patterns released by international and American fashion design houses. The collection focuses principally on the golden age of couture (1947-1957).