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Style Icon at the Victoria Albert Museum
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is a place of pilgrimage. People come from all over the world to see its stunning collection of Old Master paintings and sculpture, medieval armour and galleries of 20th century and contemporary art. So what would you guess is the most popular work of art on display there? Rogier van der Weyden Descent from the Cross, perhaps? Czanne Large Bathers? Even Marcel Duchamp The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors?
The answer at least when I was a young curator there in the early 1970s is that all these masterpieces were mere sideshows compared with the main attraction: Grace Kelly wedding dress.
Designed by Edith Head for Kelly marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, the dress was permanently on view and easy to find because the gallery in which it was displayed was always so crowded.
Nowadays it only comes out for special occasions most recently for a hugely popular show commemorating the 50th anniversary of the wedding.
You can see film clips of the wedding procession (but not the dress itself) in the Victoria and Albert Museum damp squib of an exhibition, Grace Kelly: Style Icon. Though she owned dresses by Dior, Givenchy, Chanel and Balenciaga, in this exhibition her threadbare clothes, well worn hats, naff jewels, scruffy shoes, and scuffed handbags look as if they came from a high class Oxfam shop. When I went to the packed public preview last week I found myself wondering what on earth the visitors were making of it.
On this side of the Atlantic, Grace Kelly is remembered as the beautiful American actress who married a minor European prince,cartier love bracelet rose fake, bore him three of the most badly behaved children in Europe, and then died of a stroke in 1983.
What possible interest this display of her clothes has for a European audience beats me. But in America and particularly in Kelly home town of Philadelphia it a different story. There, anything she touched approaches the status of a relic.
Forget all the clichs about the fairytale wedding. The real interest of her story is what it tells you about class, prejudice and social aspiration in American society in the middle of the last century when Philadelphia was notorious for the rigidity of its social hierarchy.
The Kellys were wealthy and broadly middle class, but they were also Irish and Catholic at a time when Eleanor Roosevelt could declare in a public broadcast that John F Kennedy religion disqualified him from running for president. What is more, Kelly had a second prejudice (or third, if you count her Irish background) to overcome the idea, pervasive in the US,cartier love bracelet pink gold fake, that all actresses were basically courtesans. Believe me, for all her beauty and talent, Kelly background and profession made it easier for her to marry into the ancient Grimaldi dynasty than into one of the old Wasp families on Philadelphia Main Line.
But from the moment Kelly announced her engagement (at the Philadelphia Country Club a subtle signal that the Kellys had already arrived), she placed herself above criticism. Whatever romantic interests she may have had before then, newsreel footage in this exhibition shows that in the months before the wedding Grace was never photographed without her mother, in mink coat and pearls, walking a few steps behind her. And here is the important thing: by behaving with impeccable dignity,cartier love bracelet yellow price, Grace Kelly helped pave the way for the election of an Irish Catholic president four years later. By presenting her wedding dress to the local museum, Her Serene Highness left a neat reminder to the Protestant establishment of her family ascendancy.
All this is relevant for understanding the V show because the most striking thing about Kelly wardrobe is how conservative it is. As one of the most beautiful women in the world, whatever she wore looked sensational, and for me by far the most entertaining part of the exhibition are the film clips showing her public appearances.
But from the point of view of design, the clothes are not in themselves especially memorable. Whether you are looking at costumes by Edith Head for her film roles or the glamorous evening gowns Christian Dior and Hubert Givenchy made for her to wear at charity galas in Monaco, Grace had her own style which was correct, proper but never adventurous.
Even Kelly jewels reflect her slightly suburban taste for brooches in the form of bugs and poodles. As you can see in a 1956 diamond and sapphire brooch set in platinum, her favourite jewellers, Van Cleef Arpels, were superb craftsmen, but unlike Cartier, they were not noted for their inventive design.
Clothes lent Princess Grace the dignity she needed to fulfil the role she had chosen for herself. With her regal bearing she looked completely natural wearing them. Unlike the actresses at the Oscar ceremonies, when Princess Grace wore a ball gown it didn look as though she borrowed it for a few hours.
In fact, the grubby condition of a lot of the clothes, hats and bags in this show suggests that Kelly wore them until she worn them out.
Unfortunately,cartier love bracelet diamond imitation, this admirable character trait makes for a truly dispiriting exhibition. As I gazed in dismay at the moulting, crumpled hats on display, I remembered the Schiaparelli exhibition at the Muse des arts dcoratifs in Paris a few years ago, where each elegant object looked pristine, largely (I assume) because it had been worn once or twice, and then carefully put away.
Likewise, the opulent dress coats, uniforms, livery and regalia shown at the V recent display of male costumes from the Russian Imperial Court had all been lovingly mended, folded, wrapped in tissue, and kept from the light.
The installation is pedestrian, with far too much crammed into two small galleries. The light levels are so low that even the most vividly coloured evening gowns look monochromatic. The catalogue didn tell me a single thing I didn already know or couldn have guessed.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is a place of pilgrimage. People come from all over the world to see its stunning collection of Old Master paintings and sculpture, medieval armour and galleries of 20th century and contemporary art. So what would you guess is the most popular work of art on display there? Rogier van der Weyden Descent from the Cross, perhaps? Czanne Large Bathers? Even Marcel Duchamp The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors?
The answer at least when I was a young curator there in the early 1970s is that all these masterpieces were mere sideshows compared with the main attraction: Grace Kelly wedding dress.
Designed by Edith Head for Kelly marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, the dress was permanently on view and easy to find because the gallery in which it was displayed was always so crowded.
Nowadays it only comes out for special occasions most recently for a hugely popular show commemorating the 50th anniversary of the wedding.
You can see film clips of the wedding procession (but not the dress itself) in the Victoria and Albert Museum damp squib of an exhibition, Grace Kelly: Style Icon. Though she owned dresses by Dior, Givenchy, Chanel and Balenciaga, in this exhibition her threadbare clothes, well worn hats, naff jewels, scruffy shoes, and scuffed handbags look as if they came from a high class Oxfam shop. When I went to the packed public preview last week I found myself wondering what on earth the visitors were making of it.
On this side of the Atlantic, Grace Kelly is remembered as the beautiful American actress who married a minor European prince,cartier love bracelet rose fake, bore him three of the most badly behaved children in Europe, and then died of a stroke in 1983.
What possible interest this display of her clothes has for a European audience beats me. But in America and particularly in Kelly home town of Philadelphia it a different story. There, anything she touched approaches the status of a relic.
Forget all the clichs about the fairytale wedding. The real interest of her story is what it tells you about class, prejudice and social aspiration in American society in the middle of the last century when Philadelphia was notorious for the rigidity of its social hierarchy.
The Kellys were wealthy and broadly middle class, but they were also Irish and Catholic at a time when Eleanor Roosevelt could declare in a public broadcast that John F Kennedy religion disqualified him from running for president. What is more, Kelly had a second prejudice (or third, if you count her Irish background) to overcome the idea, pervasive in the US,cartier love bracelet pink gold fake, that all actresses were basically courtesans. Believe me, for all her beauty and talent, Kelly background and profession made it easier for her to marry into the ancient Grimaldi dynasty than into one of the old Wasp families on Philadelphia Main Line.
But from the moment Kelly announced her engagement (at the Philadelphia Country Club a subtle signal that the Kellys had already arrived), she placed herself above criticism. Whatever romantic interests she may have had before then, newsreel footage in this exhibition shows that in the months before the wedding Grace was never photographed without her mother, in mink coat and pearls, walking a few steps behind her. And here is the important thing: by behaving with impeccable dignity,cartier love bracelet yellow price, Grace Kelly helped pave the way for the election of an Irish Catholic president four years later. By presenting her wedding dress to the local museum, Her Serene Highness left a neat reminder to the Protestant establishment of her family ascendancy.
All this is relevant for understanding the V show because the most striking thing about Kelly wardrobe is how conservative it is. As one of the most beautiful women in the world, whatever she wore looked sensational, and for me by far the most entertaining part of the exhibition are the film clips showing her public appearances.
But from the point of view of design, the clothes are not in themselves especially memorable. Whether you are looking at costumes by Edith Head for her film roles or the glamorous evening gowns Christian Dior and Hubert Givenchy made for her to wear at charity galas in Monaco, Grace had her own style which was correct, proper but never adventurous.
Even Kelly jewels reflect her slightly suburban taste for brooches in the form of bugs and poodles. As you can see in a 1956 diamond and sapphire brooch set in platinum, her favourite jewellers, Van Cleef Arpels, were superb craftsmen, but unlike Cartier, they were not noted for their inventive design.
Clothes lent Princess Grace the dignity she needed to fulfil the role she had chosen for herself. With her regal bearing she looked completely natural wearing them. Unlike the actresses at the Oscar ceremonies, when Princess Grace wore a ball gown it didn look as though she borrowed it for a few hours.
In fact, the grubby condition of a lot of the clothes, hats and bags in this show suggests that Kelly wore them until she worn them out.
Unfortunately,cartier love bracelet diamond imitation, this admirable character trait makes for a truly dispiriting exhibition. As I gazed in dismay at the moulting, crumpled hats on display, I remembered the Schiaparelli exhibition at the Muse des arts dcoratifs in Paris a few years ago, where each elegant object looked pristine, largely (I assume) because it had been worn once or twice, and then carefully put away.
Likewise, the opulent dress coats, uniforms, livery and regalia shown at the V recent display of male costumes from the Russian Imperial Court had all been lovingly mended, folded, wrapped in tissue, and kept from the light.
The installation is pedestrian, with far too much crammed into two small galleries. The light levels are so low that even the most vividly coloured evening gowns look monochromatic. The catalogue didn tell me a single thing I didn already know or couldn have guessed.
The Wall