Grace Kelly - Style Icon

Grace Kelly’s life story is the stuff of legend. The essence of beauty and elegance, she seamlessly made the switch from Hollywood royalty to European royalty. The press obsessively covered her every move as women around the world coveted her unique style. The V and A’s latest show sheds fresh light on a woman who was by turns down to earth, sophisticated and enigmatic.

Like that other famous blonde Princess, Diana, Grace was one of the most photographed women in the world. Like Elizabeth Taylor and Jackie Onassis she radiated glamour. Yet if Taylor embodied a voluptuous vamp and Onassis a cool chic, Kelly’s style was altogether more accessible – a blend of fairytale wish-fulfillment and peppy prom queen.

The V and A have put together a beautifully comprehensive show that charts Kelly’s evolution from top pin-up girl to serene princess. There was something breathless and ephemeral about her composed pale looks and this exhibition focuses on her outfits from the three main stages of her life – actress, bride and princess.

Simple American fashions such as shortwaist dresses and casual shorts and trousers sit comfortably alongside understated evening gowns from Kelly’s film career, while Parisian couture from the later years exults in her dramatic outlook on life. Although she favoured creations by designers like Christian Dior and Oleg Cassini she remained faithful to a classic, streamlined style that harked back to her ordinary roots and suave, placid image.

Kelly re-established the Monaco tradition of the fancy dress ball and her own sketchings from this period are the most interesting in the show. Extravagant, towering hair styles incorporating ostentatious jewellery and accessories encapsulate her sense of adventure.
A 1900 ball gown is complimented by a headdress that looks like a shimmering light fitting. A blurb tells us that it was so large that Kelly had to be transported to the venue lying on the floor of a van. We glimpse a fiercely independent trendsetter behind the unruffled glamour and it is this voracious playfulness that Kelly’s time in the principality allowed her to indulge.

Newsreels of the royal wedding and subsequent parties and official trips add to an ambience of unbridled glamour as we are invited to step into the lives of the rich and famous. While Kelly also died in a car crash, the similarities between her and Diana seem to end there. The overall impression is of a woman totally at ease with her celebrity, inhabiting it with a coy charm and sense of occasion. In Kelly’s own words “our life dictates a certain kind of wardrobe.” A pragmatic approach it may have been, but in Grace Kelly’s hands it was always exciting and infinitely engaging.

Grace Kelly – Style Icon, The Victoria and Albert Museum,Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL until 26 September.