Sunday, May 20, 2007

Grace Kelly follows Audrey Hepburn's footsteps

By now everyone must have heard about the Timeless Audrey exhibit. If you haven't, I shall refresh your memory: it's a traveling exhibit of memorabilia and personal items from Audrey Hepburn's public and private life, put together in an intimate, open show where you're close enough to actually touch certain items if you are so inclined. In fact, Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund executive director Ellen Erwin once said that people were a little too free to touch things -- women would walk off with Audrey's scarves! Anyway, this exhibit was around in New Orleans for a while, then toured Japan extensively for two years. It's being refurbished right now and is set to tour Europe next year, and who knows where it will go next?

But for now, Grace Kelly seems set to step in and fill that gap that the Timeless Audrey exhibit is leaving in its absence. To commemorate the 25 year anniversary of Princess Grace's untimely death, her family is putting together a remarkably similar concept called The Grace Kelly Years. Like Timeless Audrey, The Grace Kelly Years will feature a timeline of Grace's life and many artifacts from her short film career and private life as Princess of Monaco. The exhibit is set to open on July 12 in Monaco, and will then travel to New York in September, where two of Grace's dresses will be sold at auction. The interesting thing (besides the whole similar exhibit bit) is that her dresses will also be sold to benefit the charity of Grace's choice, and is expected to fetch more than the record-breaking amount that Audrey's black column dress from Breakfast at Tiffany's caught at auction last December. It's not recorded as to who gave that estimate, or if both dresses are being sold together or separately, or even where the dresses will be auctioned at, but we'll see if Grace can indeed knock Audrey out of her record-breaking spot. You can read more about Les Annees Grace Kelly (The Grace Kelly Years) here.

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