The Queen’s Hats & Handbags Exhibition, London, UK
This was a temporary exhibition bringing together all the Queen’s hats and handbags that Her Majesty had used in public engagements since her coronation. It was the first and only time that this collection was seen together. Architect William Russell won the competition to design the exhibition and our dpa London studio worked closely to integrate lighting into the concept. Of great importance was conservation of the exhibits and so conservation levels of illumination, less than 50 lux, had to be designed in. Further to this the lighting solution incorporated fibre-optics to eliminate heat and UV from the displays. One very interesting feature was the central display in a large glass display case where a carpet of hats are displayed as if flowers in a meadow. Each hat is on its own stem stand which slowly rotates with a motor below the floor. Each hat is modelled with two small fibre-optic heads per hat with light sources again below the raised floor.