Grace Kelly: Style Icon

I went to visit the Grace Kelly exhibit at the Victoria and Albert museum this afternoon. The Victoria and Albert Museum itself was free, but the Grace Kelly exhibit cost £4 for students. Inside the exhibit, there were two movie reels playing clips from her films and original newsreels, a wide array of hats, dresses, jewelry, gloves, shoes and sunglasses, and originally magazine stories that followed her life.

Grace Kelly was in 11 films from 1951 to 1956 and helped pick out her wardrobe for many of them. She became an ambassador to the world for simple American fashions, like the shirtwaist dress and casual shirts. The exhibit contained a lot of clothing from her Hollywood days, including dresses from Rear Window, The Swan and High Society (MGM gave her all her dresses from High Society to keep). The exhibit also had the dress that she wore to the 1955 Academy Awards where she won Best Actress for Country Girl (pictured above).

Grace Kelly met Prince Rainier on a business trip to the South of France for the Cannes Film Festival in 1995. After they were married, she became a big supporter of the arts and brought back grand balls to Monaco. The exhibit had many of her ball gowns, including 8 designed by Marc Bohan for Christian Dior. She also had many dresses by Givenchy, Balenciaga and Coco Channel. The exhibit also contained the coat that she wore when she landed in Monaco in 1956 by Ben Zuckerman to be greeted by a crowd of 50,000.

The exhibit also had a Givenchy dress that Grace Kelly is wearing in this picture from a 1961 White House lunch.

Unfortunately, I wasnt able to photograph her clothing, but here's a picture of the V&A!