Grace Kelly Celebrated as Style Icon

While Mad Men’s Betty Draper has unofficially been paying homage to Hollywood’s ultimate blond flirty female, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum is giving one of the most beloved actresses-turned-princesses her due with a new exhibition, Grace Kelly: Style Icon. The show is adapted from The Grace Kelly Years, which was originally at Monte Carlo’s Grimaldi Forum three years ago. But after sifting through a meticulous archive of 250 of Kelly’s dresses at the Palace of Monaco, where she once reigned as princess, Britain is now ready to reveal the best of The Country Girl from her time as an actress, a bride, and a princess. “She neutralized her beauty because she wanted to be thought of as an actress,” designer Oleg Cassini, who’s attributed with shaping Kelly’s iconic style, once told People magazine. “I told her she could be both. She had to put a little sex in her clothes.” While Cassini’s contribution cannot be ignored, Kelly’s multiple-time director Alfred Hitchcock also played a heavy hand in evolving his star’s style, which will be on display at the V&A show, beginning April 17 and running through September 26.