Grace kelly Style Icon.

GRACE KELLY: STYLE ICON

11 MARCH - 17 JUNE 2012

THIS EXHIBITION IS NOW COMPLETELY SOLD OUT

When people think of Grace Kelly (1929-82), one of the most photographed women of the 20th century, what they usually recall is her beauty and elegance. She rose to fame as an actress in the 1950s, starring in films by Hitchcock and others. Her image was cultivated by the movie industry, which fed cinema-goers' growing appetite for pictures of glamorous stars through magazines and newspapers. Her fairytale marriage to Prince Rainier only increased interest in her and her style.

As can be seen by the above the Bendigo Art gallery picks some good exhibits. Last year they had The White Wedding Dress: 200 years of wedding fashions from the Victoria and Albert Museum London, which I missed although I had bought a ticket, but it was in the few weeks I was still so sick with pneumonia, so I did not go and it ended a few weeks later. This exhibition was also well booked but  booked out in the last few weeks.

I drove up taking 1.5 hrs  (not 2 as my Google maps said) on a lovely sunny day.When I arrived the area was teeming with women! and all the coffee shops doing a roaring trade. Not sure how they cope when the exhibitions are over!!
The exhibition was more crowded than I expected as we had timed entries. But some women I was talking to in the queue at the Ladies said that they didn't check the times as there were some people in there who were supposed to be in at 1pm, not 11am.
But I  walked on past the first 2 rooms and  then came back just before 12, and in the first rooms there was almost no one there.
The dresses were lovely some classical, some more of the time, and there were photos of her when she wore them. Some were from movies, as well as her 2 wedding dresses. She had to have a religious as well as a civil marriage as laws went in Monaco. Lots of hats bags, gloves and sun glasses. Some great 'home' movies with her and the children and Cary Grant and David Niven, Liz Taylor and Richard Burton., to name a few!
Like Princess Diana she also tragically died in a car crash.

 Bendigo is a lovely looking country town with some great architectural interest. So I had a good stroll around after.

the Gallery itself is a beautiful building

Hotels and return verandas

View Street

This piece is covered in artificial grass!

Autumn

My garden signals the changing seasons.

The last of the flowers to appear in the garden is the tree magnolia. When I got back from Africa I thought I had missed it and there were just the spent flowers.  I was planning to cut it back , but luckily I looked more closely and saw that it was just starting to bloom and in a few days was out in all its glory!

The cold Autumn mornings also meant the Japanese maple had a strong colour change, and is looking stunning. Even with the leaves now falling, the carpet of leaves is lovely.