Inside the Archive: Uncovering the Story Behind Court Embroidery

Deep within Hampton Court Palace, past corridors that have witnessed five centuries of royal history, lies a room that few outside Historic Royal Palaces ever see. Here, garment bags hang in long, expansive rows, and acid-free boxes are stacked floor to ceiling, each one labelled and numbered, each one guarding something extraordinary. This is the home of the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection; over 9,000 pieces of court and royal dress, some dating back as far as the 16th century. It was here that Cole & Son found inspiration for the wallpaper, Court Embroidery.

To understand the story stitched into this design, we met Matthew Storey, curator of the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection, whose days are spent among these very garment bags and boxes, tending to pieces that once moved through the most important rooms in the country.

Ask Matthew to introduce the collection and the scale of it becomes immediately clear; a home to more than 9,000 items, that shows centuries of clothing worn at the royal court and by the royal family themselves. But what might surprise a visitor most, he says, isn't the size of the archive; it's the fact that it is nowhere near finished.

"The collection is always growing," he explains, "which makes it a very exciting thing to be a part of; discovering new items is always a real thrill." It's an idea that reframes the whole space: not a mausoleum of finished history, but a living archive, still adding new chapters.

Wander far enough into the collection, and one statistic stands out. Around 90% of the garments in Matthew's care are menswear – a legacy, he explains, of the sheer number of ceremonial uniforms held within the collection. It's a fact that quietly overturns the assumption that court fashion's most extravagant moments belonged to women's dress.

His own affections lie firmly in the 18th century. "We have some stunning men's court suits," he says, "and it's fascinating to see how that tradition of beautiful dressing continues through the centuries." Far from restrained, the menswear of the period was a study in ornamentation: heavily embroidered waistcoats and jackets were simply expected. To appear at court was to be seen, and to be seen meant looking your absolute best.

For Matthew, the real privilege of the role is watching these centuries-old garments spark something new. "I love being able to share these pieces – things that I care for every single day, whose history I'm obsessed with – with other creatives, seeing how these items can still be influential today," he says. It's precisely why the collaboration with Cole & Son's design team meant so much to him: a chance to see the collection's future secured, not through preservation alone, but through reinvention in an entirely new medium.

Matthew traces the evolution of court dress back to the 18th century, when both men's and women's clothing at court was extravagant in its decoration, embroidered in florals from collar to hem.

By the early 19th century, something had shifted. Men's jackets became simpler – cut from velvets and heavy wool, pared back in a way their predecessors were not. And yet, the waistcoat held its own. It became the one place where the previous century's decorative instincts survived intact, preserving the embroidery and delicate craftsmanship that had defined an earlier era, even as the rest of the silhouette moved toward restraint.

It's one such waistcoat – a masterwork of early 19th-century embroidery – that ultimately inspired Court Embroidery. Seeing it preserved amongst thousands of pieces, it's hard not to wonder how many hands, and how many hours, brought it into being.

"Similarly to the hand-painted nature of the final wallpaper," Matthew reflects, "the embroidery within this court waistcoat would have taken an immense number of hours to complete." Nothing about it was mechanised or mass-produced. Every stage, from constructing the garment itself to embroidering each individual flower across its surface, was done entirely by hand.

It is a fitting echo. Just as an embroiderer once spent countless hours, needle in hand, so too did Cole & Son's designers spend hours hand-painting the artwork that would become Court Embroidery. Two crafts, two centuries apart, both built on the same quiet devotion to detail.