In a rare outing on Thursday morning, the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, and the Duchess of Cambridge had a joint engagement in London celebrating a shared love of art.
The trio visited The Prince’s Foundation in the former Trinity Buoy Docklands to meet with students taking courses from The Prince’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts. When they first arrived, they were met by officials that included Lord Snowdon, who is the Vice President of the Prince’s Foundation. Lord Snowdon is the son of Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones and is the Prince’s first cousin.
Charles, Camilla, and Catherine met with students studying several different art forms. They were able to watch students in wax sculpting classes, cutting garment patterns for textile work, and even took part in a life drawing class.
The Prince’s Foundation was established in 1986 and “offers a diverse range of innovative and inspiring education and training programmes for all ages and backgrounds, from traditional arts and heritage craft skills, to architecture and design, science, engineering, horticulture, wellbeing and hospitality.”
After meeting with students from the foundation, they met with entrepreneurs and designers from the Modern Artisans project (also from the foundation). Through the project, designers were able to launch a capsule collection with YOOX Net-a-Porter.
They were also able to meet with designer Nicole Christie, who was showcasing her label, Ellipsis. Christie took part in the Prince’s Foundation Modern Artisan program that was offered in Scotland and discussed her experiences in the program with Camilla and Catherine. She gifted both duchesses a silk handbag, created with silk sourced 100% from the UK, as well as sending Catherine home with a silk scrunchie for Princess Charlotte.
Both the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cambridge share a love of the arts. Prince Charles currently has an exhibition of his watercolour paintings at the Garrison Chapel, and the Duchess has had her photographs on display at the Imperial War Museum.
