A Chinosiere Day With BIG Red Lips!

I managed to power walk my way through Brighton to the Royal Pavilion, without stopping at a single shoe or clothes shop along the way! How's that for will power!!

The Royal Pavilion is a former royal residence of the Prince Regent, later to become King George 1V when he was aged 49.  It was built in three campaigns, beginning in 1787, as a seaside retreat for the Prince. It is built in the Indo-Saracenic ( a British Gothic - Indian style built in India by British architect's), prevalent in India for most of the 19th century, with the most extravagant style, (and I have always loved this word! ) chinoiserie interiors ever executed in the British Isles. Chinosierie is a French term signifying 'Chinese - esque' in style. Considering that none of the designers, artists, craftsman, architect or indeed the Prince Regent himself had ever been to China. All was done from objects brought back from exotic trips to the far east.

I love the Royal Pavilion or Brighton Pavilion as I commonly know it. I love it's eye line on the horizon, I love the sheer extravagance of it and the total originality as it stands out bold as brass like a sore thumb in it's surroundings.

It was the Prince Regent who made Brighton fashionable during the Georgian period. He was a great patron of the arts and donated many collections to this country after his father's death and his death that we are most grateful for, including the British Library. King George 1V was born 12 August 1762 and died the 26th June 1830, just ten years after he was crowned King. He served as Prince Regent during his father King George 111 relapses into mental illness (maddness). People at the time called him a fat, idle and lazy King who squandered all England's money. He was characterized in all the papers as being nothing but a big fat whale. And although he was an utterly useless Monarch who led an extremely extravagant lifestyle at the expense of the country, but I can't help but  rather admire him as a man of impeccable taste. He certainly knew his stuff when it came to design be that in art, architecture or fashion. Of course he took a lot of pointers off the stylish Beau Brummell, until they fell out with Brummell uttering the  famous phrase -"Alvanley, Whose your fat friend?!" at a masquerade ball in 1813, when George 1V snubbed him.
  I even find it amusing that he hated his wife, Caroline of Brunswick - (whom his Father forced him to marry by blackmailing him and paying off his gambling debts), so much he banned her from his own coronation and claimed that "she smelt because she never washed her knickers!!" Consequently they only had one daughter, Princess Charlotte, and he continued to live with his beloved mistress, the widowed and Catholic Mrs Fitzherbert, whom he stayed with for the rest of his life.
George IV's heavy drinking and indulgent lifestyle took its toll on his health and by the late 1820s he was mostly bed bound. His taste for huge banquets and copious amounts of alcohol caused him to become obese, making him the target of ridicule on the rare occasions that he did appear in public. He suffered from gout,arteriosclerosis, dropsy and possibly it is thought porphyria (like his father - which is thought to have caused his maddness). He would spend whole days in bed and suffered spasms of breathlessness that would leave him half-asphyxiated. He died at about half-past three in the morning of 26 June 1830 at Windsor Castle; he called out "Good God, what is this?" clasped his page's hand and said "my boy, this is death."

But enough of the history behind the Palace, what about the Palace itself! Well, we decided to make use of our wonderful ARTFUND pass, so we gained entrance for FREE with free audio tour guides! One fo my favourite words when finding places of education and history. As intended the moment you walking into the Palace you get the immediate WOW factor! The whole Pavilion is sumptuous in design and feel. Everything is over the top with added bling - yet all extremely tastefully done. One thing Georgie Porgie (Yes, he of nursery rhyme fame) had was class and an eye for stylish detail. He brought everything together with his keen eye for quality and taste. 
My eldest daughter was blown away by the Banqueting Room, I think we all were. The dragons that adorned the walls, ceilings, fireplace and furniture were equisite. The Silver Dragon holding the Chandelier was the Queen of Dragons, resplendant in her shinning scales.

Sadly photograpghy wasn't allowed inside and I couldn't flaunt their rules long enough to get a good enough picture of the dragon ceiling.

Each room was just as splendid, and full of mannequins with regency costumes along the way for the exhibition 'Dress for Excess' fashion in Regency England. It is an exhibition to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Regency Act (the Parliamentary act that allowed George to act as Prince Regent and gave birth to the Regency period). The clothes were divine. Elegant, simplistic and to die for gorgeous. It was like walking into Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet's dressing rooms. I wanted to try every single one on, but had to make do just looking at them from behind a fancy gold braided rope. I will admit that I was leaning over so far at one point, there was a chance I could fall.
The music room was one of the most divinely hand painted murial walls I have ever, ever seen!! The sign before we entered said : 'Please remove stillettos before walking on the carpet' - the shag carpet was that deep!!
The bedrooms weren't as OTT as the downstairs, but the metal bamboo staircase up to them was very novel. I was fascinated by the secret passageways for the servants to disappear down and when you walked down them, they had a delicious energy all of their own.
Our youngest girl loved the kitchens and the massive range. Did you know that at his banquets the Prince Regent would have 32 courses served!! The jelly and blamange moulds ranged from tiny weeny scallop shells and castles to huge monstrous copper things that you could wear as a helmet. Another fact I learnt today was that the Prince Regent was the first to have and serve ice-cream in this country, and the first steam table with piped steam to keep dishes warm before serving. A sort of hot plate of today. He even had his bath plumbed to the sea so he could bath in sea water at the Pavilion to save him the bother of going down to the seafront. He certainly was a trend setter and fashionable mover shaker with his ideas and quirky 'must have's'.

Cherry red lips Mwahhhh!!

After a brief walk around the protected gardens we wandered into the Brighton Museum and Gallery. Home to artist Salvador Dali's famous Mae West's Lips sofa, which I couldn't wait to show the girls, as I haven't been here since I was a student many moons ago. They now even have a mini sofa to have photos taken on! As you can tell from the photo below the girls couldn't understand my bubbling excitement at the Big Red Lips sofa. I have always loved and desired this sofa and stood for a good minute in front of it demanding to have my photo taken whilst passing German visitors frowed at the mad little lady unable to contain herself took to hopping on the spot in the black and white spotty dress!

Tribal spirit costume.

We got to see one of my favourite designer's chairs - Rennie Mackintosh, trace the history of Brighton and see authentic Punch and Judy dolls and stands, travel through the world in the World Art exhibitions and see a tribal spirit costume - which absolutely fascinated me!

The upstairs fashion show through time was torturous as there were so many costumes that I would love to wear, including a Regency and Chinese inspired white dress by Zandra Rhodes, an Ozzie Clark little yellow number and a very delicate 1940's ballerina embroidered chemise - topped off with lots of period shoes, especially red ones! My embarrassed youngest did have to pull me off the glass at one - no, I will be honest here, several times today - as I plastered myself in front of certain items of clothing and the words "Must have dress" puffed out from my lips.