GRACE KELLY, STYLE ICON AT THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON, AUGUST 2010

GRACE KELLY, STYLE ICON at the VICTORIA and ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON, AUGUST 2010 This exhibition is a retrospective view of the style icon of the 1950s, Grace Kelly (1929 - 1982), tracing her personal evolution from New England Irish Catholic girl in white gloves to make believe princess of the silver screen to her marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco. Kelly thus lived out Hollywood's typical self-fulfilling prediction, that it can make fantasy become reality for a very few. Kelly’s career began in modelling. She was able to transpose some of the skills of dress, make up, hairstyle and care to the silver screen and beyond. The exhibition traces Kelly's do it yourself approach and improvisational elan through her career as an actress with directors such as Alfred Hitchcock. If anything it’s the conventional person she was that shines through the glitz that seems to have summed up her later career. The early costumes enable her to appear both as a voluptuous 'sweater girl' and as the girl next door which is perhaps best illustrated by her performance as Lisa Fremont in Hitchcock's 'Rear Window'. Kelly is a populiser of seemingly ordinary, mundane things, such as sunglasses and handbags. Unusually for a female celebrity of the 1950s Kelly admitted to the fact that she was short sighted and was often photographed wearing glasses or even reading a screenplay with their aid. She popularised the Hermes bag, which evolved from a saddle bag. This over-sized lady's bag later became known in time as the Kelly bag. Her clothes are often functional, but later on she experimented with a Christian Dior dress in the manner of Piet Mondrian. There are dresses for her films by Edith Head which seem functional, designed to draw attention to Kelly herself. This is her rawly underwritten signature. Reading between the lines it’s hard not to see Kelly being mistaken in marrying Rainier, instead of continuing with her burgeoning Hollywood career. Kelly was born in Philadelphia, the daughter of an Irish immigrant who had made his fortune in the building trade in the States. Her subsequent marriage to Prince Rainier may have been of political importance. The exhibition documents her visit to southern Ireland to visit Eammon de Valera in 1957 thus foreshadowing John F Kennedy’s election in 1961. It may have been easier for Kelly to marry into European aristocracy than into ruling WASP elites in the US thus underlining the social status that (Irish-American catholic) actors enjoyed across the Atlantic. This exhibition has a very condensed feel to it. There isn't perhaps enough detailed research and historical context could have been expanded on. There was the possibility to make an amazing exhibition that could encapsulate the 1950s era and comment freely on our own, but this isn't quite it. However as a starting point to understanding its subject this exhibition is excellent. Paul Murphy, Victoria & Albert Museum, London

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