Luxury goods company Montblanc becomes a charity partner supporting the Princess Grace Foundation in the USA in return for using Grace Kelly as the inspiration for a collection of jewels, watches and pens named: "A Tribute to Grace." The Princess Grace Foundation-USA supports young artists.
Princess Grace is a well-known style icon associated forever with sun-dappled Monaco, pastel-hued tailored suits and an elegance all of her own. She met Prince Rainier at the Cannes Film Festival in 1955 where she had flown to promote her new film "Country Girl".
Following a secret liaison, a year later the royal marriage was announced. A 1955 photograph of Grace Kelly's first encounter with Prince Rainier shows a young Grace in a flouncy, somewhat gauche flowered dress cautiously extending her hand in what looks almost like a bow, to a beaming, suited and bespectacled Prince, his signet ring visible on his left hand pinkie finger. The formality of the occasion is evident in the white gloves clasped in Grace's left hand and the velvet ropes behind which the photographer must have stood.
Grace Kelly's story, though it ended tragically, with her death on the roads of Monaco, was a fairytale. The daughter of a wealthy American, she was no ingénue nor a newcomer to wealth. By the time she met Prince Rainier she was Hollywood's highest earning female star with credits to her name such as Hitchcock's "Rear Window", "Dial M for Murder" as well as "Green Fire", "The Bridges of Toko-Ri" and "Mogambo." Her dowry to Prince Rainer was $2 million, which by some accounts, was small change to this wealthy American family.
Prince Rainier gave Grace a Cartier wedding ring and throughout her life she was fond of collecting jewels from the big names in French jewellery. Released from the intense work schedule of filming, Princess Grace was able to indulge in her love of arts and dazzle the world with her celestial beauty that inspires this Montblanc range of jewels, watches and pens.
The Grace de Monaco pink rose, created in 1956 to commemorate her wedding, inspires the design of each of the pieces in the collection, as does the heart-shape of the décolleté of her dramatic, close fitting black dress seen in the image above. It was one of the current Prince Rainier's favourite photographs of his mother and an enduring image of one of the most beautiful women in the world. Soft mother of pearl, pink sapphires and delicate petal shapes gives this collection an air of femininity and grace.
