Victoria's amazing coronation creation for Charles III
Royal Warrant holders Victoria Carpets of Kidderminster have marked the coronation of King Charles III by creating a giant portrait mosaic using 3cm x 3cm squares of carpet.
At over four metres square and utilising over 3,000 individual pieces of carpet, the finished portrait took over 16 hours to produce, and faithfully recreates an official portrait released to celebrate the then Prince of Wales’ 60th birthday.
The mosaic is the brainchild of the Victoria Carpets’ marketing team, comprising head of marketing Debbie Turvey, digital communications assistant Rebecca Cash, and marketing executive Frances Brewer. Debbie took inspiration from a similar styled piece by Turkish artist Deniz Sagdic she had seen on Instagram, and asked her team if they thought it would be possible to achieve a similar effect using squares of carpet.
Rebecca and Frances worked out that by pixelating an image of King Charles III, they could convert the pixels to carpet colours, and then match them to actual carpet squares. Then over four weeks the project took shape, leaving the final piece to be assembled in their Kidderminster warehouse as that was the only place large enough to house it.
Watch on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/-GuwAcejYcU
Victoria Carpets were awarded their Royal Warrant after supplying the red carpet for the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2013. Amazingly, the team have been able to use some of this same carpet from their archive to help create the red of the King’s ceremonial uniform of the Welsh Guards in their portrait.
Commenting on the project, head of marketing Debbie Turvey said; “We’re very proud of our royal connection here at Victoria, and when we started this project, we had no idea it would turn out so well. Full credit to Rebecca and Frances for making it happen and taking an initial concept and turning it into a giant carpet mosaic.
“We’ve been overwhelmed at seeing people’s reaction to it, from walking past us as we stuck tiny pieces of carpet onto a much larger backing carpet, to finally seeing the finished effect. We now can’t wait to share it with a wider audience!”
The next stage in the mosaic’s life is still to be decided, with Rebecca stating; “we’re not sure how best to display the finished mosaic, but it ideally needs a large space to show it off to its optimum effect, as it is best viewed from a bit of a distance.”
Let’s hope this wonderful coronation mosaic can find a home fit for a King.
