Grace Kelly

This is my desktop in all its defaulty glory. I am having to start from scratch, which means everything is happening again for the first time: “would you like Internet Explorer to save that password for you?” etc etc.

That’s better.

Other than Moomins, I am currently a mad fan of Grace Kelly: I think she exemplifies style in that she has an immediately recognisable look. She’s known for being restrained and elegant but I learned from the V&A exhibition, which I really recommend if you are a fan, that she also wore some bonkers stuff in her time and made some more trend-led choices than I expected, for example during her 70s boho phase and in wearing the YSL “Mondrian” dress in the 60s.

But it is all about “Princess Grace”, the most princessy of them all. This dress opens the show and it’s so pink and pretty you really are left helpless to resist the fairytale element of it all.

I’ve added all of her films – there are only 11 – to my lovefilm list and am particularly looking forward to watching High Society.

Like Coco Chanel, Kelly thought it was “important to see the person first and the clothes afterwards”. That is evident in the pared-down look she wore in the 50s and 60s – the Telegraph found the ordinariness of her clothes and the fact that she obviously wore them over and over again “dispiriting“. They have her battered Hermes bag and a tiny, faded and curled up silk flower crown. I didn’t find anything too worn although I agree the bags, shoes and hats aren’t “museum-quality” and the fashion galleries at the V&A need an overhaul; they have been pretty dank for a while now and fashion is one of their major draws.

One of the nicest things for me about this exhibition is that a lot of the looks and Grace Kelly herself really remind me of my gorgeous Finnish grandma who still has the blonde rolled hair look going on. She remembers the black dress with floral pattern Kelly wore when she first met the prince of Monaco (below left in the V&A).

Here is Kelly wearing the dress on the right:

I really dig her hats:

Her civil wedding outfit.

The wedding suit, on display at the V&A.

In reality, the magic of the clothes is that Grace Kelly wore them: it’s interesting to see the shape of her body for example, which is tiny around but broad-shouldered and flat-chested. An era-defining 1950s shape in other words. The one massive disappointment about the exhibition is the lack of her wedding dress, which I had assumed would be in there but is at a museum in Chicago. The poor gallery assistant was obviously already sick of answering the question “where is the wedding dress?” by 3pm on the first day…

The Grace Kelly look on Betty Draper in Mad Men:

If further evidence of Kelly’s influence is needed, check out this screenshot from Rear Window, found at the very useful and lovingly-curated website Clothes on Film:

Alexa has to get her ideas from somewhere.

x S

p.s. Pictures were sourced from the Grace Kelly thread at The Fashion Spot, the Telegraph, Guardian and V&A websites.

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