Carpet fit for a King as manufacturers celebrate the coronation with four metre portrait
This is King Charles III as you've never seen him before – made out of carpet.
It took the team at Victoria Carpets in Kidderminster more than 16 painstaking hours and 3,000 pieces of carpet to complete, as they put together a mammoth portrait of the royal to mark the coronation.
Staff from the carpet manufacturers utilised 3cm squares of carpet to put together the mosaic, which comes in at more than four metres.
But this isn't the only connection the company have with the royals, having previously been awarded a Royal Warrant after supplying the red carpet for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2013.
The team used some of this same carpet from their archive to create the image of the monarch's ceremonial uniform which is featured in the portrait.
Over a period of four weeks, Rebecca Cash and Frances Brewer – who are part of the marketing team – pixelated an image of King Charles, matching up the colours they saw in the image with different colours of carpet.
Debbie Turvery, head of marketing, first proposed the idea after taking inspiration from a similar piece by artist Deniz Sagdic, which she saw on Instagram.
She 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 pas us as we stuck tiny pieces of carpet onto a much larger backing carpet, to finally seeing the finished effect. We can't wait to share it with a wider audience."
The portrait was assembled at the company's warehouse in Kidderminster, as it was the only space big enough to put it.
Staff from Victoria Carpets have said the future of the art piece is yet to be decided.
Rebecca, digital communications assistant, added: "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."
