2018 Fashion Trip - Day 4

It's me again, very exciting, I know.

Today was our last day in central London before heading out of the city tomorrow, so we squeezed in a few last tourist-y adventures. We started our day off again with a well-rounded pancake-filled breakfast and made our way to Spitalfields Markets via Liverpool Station, which is the second cutest underground station ever.

Spitalfields is surrounded by restaurants and shops, and hundreds of booths fill the interior of the markets (think: your local farmer's market on steroids). Patrons have been buying from and trading with vendors at Spitalfields for over 350 years, but more on that later. 

Spitalfields as they were setting up booths

Here we found some great unique items from local vendors, antiques, and hand-crafted artisan goods. Unfortunately, I can't share exactly what we got because most everything were gifts for the needy people back home, but it's good stuff. 
We then made our way to an antique shop on Brick Road which I could have packed up and moved in to. It was great until I almost bought a beret that was marked as vintage but it said 1994 inside... rude. 

After our morning in Spitalfields we ventured off to Kensington Palace via High Street Kensington Station, which is the number one cutest underground station ever. Please enjoy this terribly lit photo of it.

After a short walk we arrived at Kensington Palace. The Palace was built originally as a two story mansion in 1605 and was purchased by the royal family as a home for King William III and Queen Mary II. They chose this location for their asthmatic son William who needed fresh air away from the pollution and fog of the River Thames. Whatever works, I guess. 

One Queen's (Queen Caroline?) influence in renovations and decorations during her residence in the palace, was to fashion many rooms to be very long and highly decorated to aid in one of her favorite pastimes: walking. 

Anyway...

 The stories of royal highs and lows lined the rooms of Kensington Palace. It was interesting to read about the many stories and even scandals associated with the many individuals that have shared time here. Overall the architecture was more than impressive, with walls that were nearly four feet thick, and a stunning collection of artwork and original furniture. 

After many renovations, royal residence relocation, and lots of royalty who's names I can't keep straight for the life of me, a portion of Kensington Palace became the home of Princess Diana and Prince Charles. The palace became a popular place for loyal fans to grieve after her death, bringing hundreds of thousands of flowers in her honor. We luckily got to see the great collection of her most influential, groundbreaking, and memorable fashions in Diana: Her Fashion Story. I asked about her iconic wedding dress and was informed that it is in the possession of the family after it was quickly taken off of display after her divorce to Prince Charles in 1996. 

Designed by Zandra Rhodes (yesterday's fashion show!)

Of course we fashion-geeked out and took a million photos as we drooled all over the exhibit. But our drooling wasn't over yet! We then made our way to the V&A Museum where they have a collection of European Fashion history. We exercised our fashion history brains (Thanks Dr. Eberle!) and were totally obsessed. Prepare for more photos, please.

Mantua 1740-1745, Unknown

Remember when I said we'd come back around to Spitalfields? Fabric hanging to the right of the gown was from 18th century Spitalfields! 

(Also, let's remember the sewing machine wasn't invented for another hundred years at this point...)

Muslin wedding dress, 1851 

(Very impressive that it is still white!)

Coco Chanel Jumpsuit, 1937-1938

Yves Saint Laurent (probably) for Christian Dior, 1960

André Courrèges, around 1968

Zandra Rhodes, 1969

(Our fashion show again!)

After exerting all of our brain power at the V&A and stressing over my brand new gloves from Joy that went missing here, we decided it was time for a quick fix of fish and chips.

Happy 1:30 a.m. blog post, y'all.

Lizzie