Yahoo Finance G7 Leaders, Queen Elizabeth, Dine at the Eden Project in Cornwall
GARDEN OF EDEN: World leaders and British royals, including Queen Elizabeth II, gathered at the Eden Project in Cornwall for the G7 summit’s inaugural dinner on Friday night. The Queen and Prince Charles mingled with President and First Lady Joe and Jill Biden, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his new wife Carrie Symonds.
Symonds wore the Festival Dress by The Vampire’s Wife, which she rented from Hurr Collective, a rental platform based in London. She’s certainly been working the circular economy, having rented the mustard yellow dress she wore for her arrival in Cornwall from My Wardrobe HQ.
More from WWD
FLOTUS arrived prepared for the elements, wearing a khaki Gabriela Hearst raincoat with black trim over a printed dress. In step with the Duchess of Cambridge, who wore a red short-sleeved Alexander McQueen dress earlier Friday, and Carrie Symonds, who wore a red shirt-sleeved dress from LK Bennett Thursday, the first lady wore a short-sleeved red Brandon Maxwell dress to greet world leaders before making what was her third wardrobe change of the day for the Eden Project dinner.
Guests at the dinner are in for a feast of local dishes from Cornwall.
Chef Emily Scott from Newquay’s Watergate Bay hotel is set to serve a specially designed five course meal, including turbot caught fresh off the coast of Newquay by a local fisherman, with Cornish new potatoes and wild garlic pesto and greens from the local Padstow kitchen gardens.
Afterward, guests will be offered Cornish petit fours made from clotted cream fudge, and a mini clotted cream ice cream cone with chocolate earl grey truffles.
The Eden Project is a major British visitor attraction and an environmental wonderland featuring special biomes that simulate different environments and climates, such as a rainforest, or the Mediterranean coast.
It is home to thousands of plant species. It also features a botanical garden with plants and wildlife native to Cornwall and the U.K., some of which have prehistoric origins.
On Saturday, G7 Leaders will attend talks by the chair of the G7 Economic Resilience Panel Mark Sedwill; the chair of the International Pandemic Preparedness Partnership Patrick Vallance, and by Melinda Gates, co-chair and founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Earlier on Friday, the GEAC, Gender Equality Advisory Council, an independent group of experts responsible for championing the core principles of freedom, opportunity, individual humanity and dignity for women and girls around the world, set out a series of recommendations to G7 leaders.
Their recommendations focused on education, economic empowerment and ending violence against women and girls.
Liz Truss, Britain’s minister for Women and Equalities, said the U.K. “has a proud history of championing the rights of women and girls both here and across the globe. I’m pleased that we are using our presidency of the G7 to put women at the heart of our recovery from COVID-19 through the work of the Gender Equality Advisory Council.”
Truss added: “These recommendations will help us drive forward a strong agenda on women’s rights, both domestically and internationally, and I look forward to working with GEAC members as we build back better.”
On Thursday, Jill Biden delivered a message of affection with a $448 black Zadig & Voltaire blazer embellished in the back with “LOVE.” The last time a first lady wore a jacket with a takeaway was when Melania Trump donned a Zara jacket imprinted with “I Really Don’t Care Do U?” for an official visit with immigrant children at the Texas border. Biden bought the black blazer, a Zadig & Voltaire spokeswoman said Friday.
In another sign of solidarity, the first lady posted on Twitter photos of herself with the Duchess of Cambridge from a school visit Friday morning and one of herself with Carrie Symonds — who she identified as Carrie Johnson — and son Wilfred from a Thursday beach stroll in Cornwall. She also is staying true-blue to a few major American designers, including Michael Kors who designed the white boucle dress she spotted on arrival in the U.K. Wednesday.
Best of WWD
Sign up for WWD's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
