Coworth Park celebrates 300 years of Ascot with edible and wearable hats by celebrated milliner Stephen Jones, OBE
Dorchester Collection’s new luxury country house hotel and spa, Coworth Park, will be offering guests Ascot inspired hat creations by celebrated milliner Stephen Jones OBE in all manner of guises this summer.
Just 15 minutes drive from Coworth Park, Ascot Racecourse will celebrate its 300th anniversary in 2011. The racecourse has established itself as a national institution and the centrepiece of the British social calendar as well as being the ultimate stage for the best racehorses in the world. Ladies Day has become a fixed part of the British social season, when ladies vie to wear the finest hats and British media across the country report on the varying styles.
This year, Coworth Park will be inviting guests to celebrate Ascot’s 300th anniversary with a special Ascot tea, the chance to wear one of Stephen Jones’s original Coworth Park designs, and a pop up hat salon. The full range of Ascot celebrations include:
- Save the trouble of travelling with a hat box - suite guests visiting from afar to attend legendary Ascot Ladies’ Day will be invited to borrow one of the Stephen Jones designed Coworth Park Couture Millinery Collection, first worn by model and designer Jasmine Guinness at Ascot Ladies Day in 2010. Suites are priced from £555 excluding VAT, and tickets to Ladies Day can be secured on request, subject to availability.
- Stephen Jones will be holding a Pop Up Hat Salon at Coworth Park on Friday 15th April to advise on the best way to choose and wear a hat, and 2011 millinery trends (tickets for the morning salon will include lunch and a goodie bag, and one on one appointments will be available in the afternoon subject to availability)
- Milliner Stephen Jones and chef John Campbell have collaborated to create millinery inspired tea cakes which will be served during a special Ascot 300th Anniversary Afternoon Tea at Coworth Park, priced from £26.00 per guest (or £39.00 for champagne afternoon tea), from Saturday 11th to Sunday 19th June 2011
- Full size Ascot Hat Cakes are available to order from the hotel and to enjoy at home, neatly presented in a Stephen Jones hat box. The 8-inch round, chocolate cakes are priced at £75 per cake and include spring & summer fruits and mini cakes on top. Cakes will be available for purchase two weeks prior to the Ascot races and throughout.
- Deluxe rooms at Coworth Park are priced from £480 excluding VAT. This rate is available from Tuesday 14 June to Saturday 18 June 2011.
Milliner Stephen Jones commented, “Millinery extravaganzas have always been de rigeur for Ascot and are part of its heritage. With this year’s hat trends for the soft and floral, nowhere could be more inspiring than Coworth Park’s sprawling natural meadow bursting with field flowers.”
Director of Cuisine John Campbell added, “Stephen and I collaborated on this year’s Coworth Park Ascot Afternoon Tea to create cakes that celebrate the fresh romance of a summer straw hat, and by contrast, the rakish traditional Top Hat. Coworth Park will be buzzing for Ascot this year, and it will be in keeping with the hotels whimsical nature to offer something different.”
Coworth Park Couture Millinery Collection:
There are four hats available to be borrowed from the Coworth Park Couture Millinery Collection each representing a different aspect of the Coworth Park experience:
The ‘Royal Ascot’
Inspired by the rich equestrian heritage of Coworth Park, the only hotel in the UK with its own polo fields and stabling for horses, ‘The Royal Ascot’ hat is a modern interpretation of a ladies dressage top hat but in lacquered straw, complete with snood, veil and a cockade of blush honeysuckle.
‘The Park’
A naturalistic peach blossom branch but rendered in satin and organza with twinkling highlights, this hat captures the essence of the English countryside and the 240 acre estate in Royal Berkshire where Coworth Park is situated.
‘The Décor’hat’
With a nod to the woodland setting that inspired Coworth Park’s renowned interior designers, Fox Linton Associates, Stephen has created a fashion-now fascinator featuring the natural colours and textures of the hotel in linen, leather and copper.
‘The Spa’
A translucent rippled resin splash boater, gilded with precious metals, hints at rejuvenation for mind and body, echoing the eco-luxury spa and pool to be found at Coworth Park.
Editors Notes
Coworth Park is a 70-room luxury country house hotel set in 240 acres of picturesque Berkshire parkland just 45 minutes from central London and 20 minutes from Heathrow airport. Its location, unrivalled in the UK for ease and convenience of its transport links, is also enhanced by its own helipad. The estate itself boasts an equestrian centre eco-luxury Spa at Coworth Park with indoor pool and three restaurants overseen by Michelin-starred chef, John Campbell.
Stephen Jones spearheaded the fashionable revival of British Millinery in the early 1980’s. Using unusual materials and daring designs, his exquisitely crafted hats have continued to push boundaries of hat design. He was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire or OBE in the 2009 New Year Honours list to recognize his services to British millinery. In 2010 he became the fashion ambassador for Coworth Park and was a judge on the UK panel of the Dorchester Collection Fashion Prize. He was also honoured with the Fashion Group International Star Honoree in New York and held a major exhibition at the V & A showcasing the universal appeal and delight of wearing hats. In addition to his own innovative collections, he continues to design for the world’s leading fashion designers including John Galliano at Dior, Giles Deacon, Vivienne Westwood and has created hats for a wide range of celebrity clients.
Dorchester Collection is the successor to the Dorchester Group, originally established in 1996 to manage the collection of hotels in Europe and the USA. Dorchester Collection is a portfolio of the world’s foremost luxury hotels. Backing the strategy is a strong company branding that expresses the market’s universally high regard for the current portfolio and the distinctive common values held by all Dorchester Collection hotels. The current portfolio is owned and managed by Dorchester Collection:
The Dorchester, London
The Beverly Hills Hotel, Beverly Hills
Le Meurice, Paris
Hotel Plaza Athénée, Paris
Hotel Principe di Savoia, Milan
The New York Palace, New York
Hotel Bel-Air, Los Angeles (closed for refurbishment, opening 2011)
Coworth Park, Ascot
45 Park Lane, London (opening 2011)
For further press information, please contact:
Rosanna Crawley
Area Head of Communications
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7319 7062
rcrawley@dorchestercollection.com
Emma Parfitt
Communications Executive
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7319 7055
eparfitt@dorchestercollection.com