Image: Charleston Farmhouse (Simon Carey CC BY-SA 2.0)
The Sussex museum has announced Kim Jones OBE,and Sigrid Rausing, as Vice Presidents.
Charleston museum in Sussex has announced the appointment of Kim Jones OBE, Creative Director of Dior Men and Fendi Womenswear and Couture, and Sigrid Rausing, publisher of Granta Magazine and Granta Books, as Vice Presidents.
Jones and Rausing will join the current President Virginia Nicholson, Vanessa Bell’s granddaughter, and its patron Her Majesty Queen Camilla, as ambassadors of Charleston, which recently opened a new cultural centre in Lewes.
Rausing is a long-standing supporter of Charleston, having previously served on the Board of Trustees of the charity and, in 2023, her publishing house Granta worked with the Estate of Virginia Woolf to republish the five-volume Diaries of Virginia Woolf that had been edited by Olivier Bell, Vanessa Bell’s daughter in law.
Rausing said: “Charleston to me is a space of creative contradiction; a museum dedicated to preserving the memory, home, art and artefacts of a circle known, above all, for their innovation and transgression in all the varied fields they engaged in – literature, art, philosophy, economics, and ideas about how to make a family and a home. That the museum and festivals have succeeded in staying true to that spirit of innovation, while also commemorating it, is a testament to its governance and leadership, and I am delighted to become a Vice President.”
Jones’s involvement with Charleston began when he visited the house as part of a school trip. Since 2018, he has worked closely with the Charleston team to help acquire objects for the house, including a fire screen which was once in John Maynard Keynes’ bedroom. He arranged a Vogue photoshoot with Kate Moss to mark his first womenswear collection for Fendi and the reopening of Charleston post-pandemic, and, in 2023, took 12 drawings from Charleston’s archive and turned them into the summer menswear collection for Dior which was revealed in front of an almost life-size replica of the house during Paris Fashion Week.
‘Charleston is a place I’ve loved since I was about 14 […] It’s been with me through my life’ – Kim Jones
Charleston's Darren Clarke and artistic director of Dior Men, Kim Jones, explore Duncan Grant’s influence on Dior Summer 2023.
Find out more 👉 https://t.co/lQhdM5kT0u pic.twitter.com/Dzctqoi7D1
— The Charleston Trust (@CharlestonTrust) June 28, 2022
Jones said: “The impact of Charleston never left me after I visited the house for the first time when I was fourteen years old. The work of the artists, writers and thinkers associated with Charleston and the Bloomsbury group has since become a life-long passion and it is an honour for me to be an ambassador for this remarkable house and cultural centre. ”
Virginia Nicholson said of the appointments: “Sigrid is famous for being an enterprising champion of literature and art, whose intelligent goodwill and philanthropy have actively benefited Charleston’s conservation and curatorial programmes, while Kim’s spectacular creative talents have shown the world his passion for Bloomsbury, bringing in new audiences. Both have now agreed to become Vice Presidents of Charleston, to celebrate and spread the word about the charity as it looks towards an exciting future.”
