Grace Kelly's wedding dress, 19 April 1956: MGM's gift, Helen Rose's design, 25 yards of taffeta and century-old Brussels lace, seamless bodice
Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of Monaco in Monaco's cathedral on 19 April 1956, the day after their civil ceremony, in a dress her film studio paid for. MGM's chief designer Helen Rose drew it and the studio's wardrobe department built it over six weeks: 25 yards of silk taffeta, 100 yards of silk net, peau de soie, and Brussels rose point lace more than a hundred years old, its seams hidden by re-embroidery and seed pearls. Two months later she gave the dress, with its veil, shoes and prayer book, to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in the city she came from. Photo: 1956, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.