Exhibition explores Kingston’s rise as a glamorous place to live, work and play

Part of the Kingston 2025 celebrations, Kingston Glamour: Art, Innovation and the Suburbs invites visitors to rediscover Kingston’s glamorous reputation for late night cabaret, race cars and fashion. It explores how the borough was promoted as a stylish, riviera-type destination and how it led the way in architecture and modern interior design. Bringing together artefacts from the 1920’s to the 1970’s, it showcases Kingston’s pioneering influence upon motoring culture, the Art Deco movement, Suburban Modernism and the Swinging Sixties.  

Exhibition highlights include footage from the Ace of Spades Roadhouse, in its heyday the glitziest nightclub outside the WestEnd, located on the Kingston Bypass in Hook. Visitors will also have an exclusive chance to see furniture by Betty Joel, icon of the Art Deco era with a high society client list and a custom built factory at Hook Rise. There are also recently rediscovered photos from a rare public appearance by fashion designer Mary Quant at Bentalls Department Store in 1977 - a reminder of the store’s pioneering role in the youth fashion revolution. Alongside the images is an array of make-up from her industry-changing 1960’s partnership with the Gala Cosmetics Company, later occupants of the Hook Rise factory. The show also explores how the Bentalls family used glamour as a promotional tool to power the borough out of the economic depression of the 1930s and the effects of post-war austerity in the late 1940s.   

Kingston Museum Curator, Ruth Brimacombe said: 

“Whilst for some the term ‘Suburban’ has come to mean unremarkable or boring, the reality is that throughout the last century the suburbs of West London have been at the cutting edge of stylish innovations - and in Kingston’s case, a range of brilliant inventors, industrialists, architects, fashion and design pioneers, based across the borough, were at the forefront of these glamourous developments and deserve to be more widely celebrated.” 

 

Kingston Glamour is part of the Kingston 2025 celebrations, bringing our communities together in celebration of the borough’s rich history, its diverse present and bright future.  This flagship six-month festival marks the 1100th anniversary of the crowning of King Athelstan, the first king of a united England, in Kingston. The programme is an exciting blend of large and small scale public events, exhibitions, talks, tours and outdoor performances.

Kingston 2025 also includes a revamp of the community showcase at Kingston Museum. Community organisations are able to take over this cabinet to build their own display of exhibits that tell their story. The latest occupants are Queens Promenade Friends, a voluntary group dedicated to improving the river promenade, whose current work includes the nurturing of a newly planted Athelstan Garden which will be formally opened later this year at the River Cultures Festival on 6 September.  

Cllr Andreas Kirsch, Leader of Kingston Council said: 

“Kingston’s brilliant museum - which is currently shortlisted by public vote in the Time and Leisure Food and Culture Awards goes from strength to strength in showing what makes our borough and its communities unique and special.”    

• The Kingston Glamour exhibition runs to 10 January 2026.

Kingston Museum opening hours are Thursday-Saturday 10am-5pm 

A programme of talks already announced (with more to follow)  includes: 

• Thursday 10 July - 6pm-7:30pm  Carolynne Cotton  Bentalls: The Kingston Department Store since 1867

A wide selection of photos of the exhibition are available, and can be previewed on Flickr.