In the weeks leading up to the coronation, 2,000 invitations landed on doormats across the UK and the wider world. Perhaps in a last few citadels of Old England they were carried into oak-panelled breakfast rooms on silver trays by liveried footmen – or perhaps not. Either way, the design of the invitation is striking and has caused a good deal of comment.
It is self-consciously old-fashioned, harking back to the Arts and Crafts movement that flourished in the late 19th century. Knowing the King’s sympathies in cultural matters, one might almost see it as a deliberate rebuke to modern abstract design, which tends to be characterised by clean lines, blocks of colour and lack of detail. The invitation is the opposite, containing lots of small and precisely crafted illustrations with natural themes – garden birds, flowers, leaves.
