'Paris To Hollywood': Denver Art Museum Exhibit Celebrates Hollywood Couple & Style Icons Véronique & Gregory Peck
DENVER (CBS4) - A new exhibition opening next week at the Denver Art Museum celebrates the glamour of Old Hollywood through the fashion of a celebrity couple and their connections to continents on both sides of the Atlantic. The style of Véronique and Gregory Peck highlights milestones in the history of fashion and helps to capture their legacy fighting for social issues.
"This exhibition is really an opportunity to go through several decades of fashion and to stop in front of many great designers," said Florence Müller, the Avenir Foundation Curator of Textile Art and Fashion at the Denver Art Museum. "I hope you will see how Véronique was looking at fashion, fashion is really a form of art."
Paris To Hollywood: The Fashion and Influence of Véronique and Gregory Peck includes 100 ensembles by 15 different designers from around the world. Not just dresses but also sketches, photographs, film clips, and documents will be shared for the first time publicly by the family.
"It's a real mix of their public and private lives," said Cecilia Peck Voll, the couple's daughter. "I never saw anybody who looked like my mother growing up."
From the 1950s to the 1990s, the exhibition captures the change in the role of women in society. It includes 20 pieces gifted by Voll to the Denver Art Museum for this collection. There are nine sections organized in themes and following a chronological order, highlighting why designers viewed Mrs. Peck as an ambassador for the industry.
"I would watch her get dressed and kind of just be breathless, it was so beautiful and to see how she chose things," Voll said. "Someone who had a strong identity and presence and voice alongside such a renowned husband."
She admired their love, sharing that as a couple together for 50 years, they may have only spent two or three nights apart. She said that they made style look effortless and that people could not take their eyes off of them.
"Their friends were the most interesting people, actors, writers, directors, people in politics, great thinkers," Voll said. "Every time you would walk in, there would be someone incredibly interesting."
As the daughter of an American actor and a writer from France who would become a philanthropist and fashion influencer, she said her mother's roots to Paris had an impact on Los Angeles as Peck evolved through the decades with so many unique pieces.
"I think this reflects how she was really able to define herself through her style," she told CBS4 about the new exhibition. "I'm so pleased to see that it includes what they cared about which was really social justice and diversity and human rights."
The collection is made up of pieces worn by Mrs. Peck as well as one tuxedo worn by Mr. Peck. Paris To Hollywood will be on view mid-March through July 18, 2021.
"They can look at this with a very fresh eye and they can imagine and understand how the young designers of today are inspired by all these decades," added Müller, the curator of this exhibition.
The opening of Paris to Hollywood has been pushed back. Initially, Sunday was the planned debut, but staff decided to close the Denver Art Museum in anticipation of heavy snowfall. Heavy snow late Sunday meant the museum had to push back the opening at least one more day.
The exhibit will run through June 20. For more information, visit denverartmuseum.org.
