For Immediate Release Contact: Pat Kremer/Nancy O’Shea (312) 665-7100 (For Media Use Only) The Inauguration The inauguration of John F. Kennedy highlighted the youth of the Kennedys against the old guard of official Washington. For the outdoor ceremony, Oleg Cassini dressed the new first lady in an A-line coat of gray-beige wool and an iconic pillbox hat by Halston. The understated look made her shine among the dark colors and bulky furs of the other women there. With the elegant and coatless Kennedy at her side, the couple seemed the very soul of youthful vigor—an image reinforced in the exhibition with clips from the president’s inauguration address: “Let the word go forth from this time and place…that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans…” Incidentally, it was no accident that Mrs. Kennedy chose Cassini to design her inaugural costumes. Though Paris-born, he was an American designer and a veteran of World War II. Best known at the time for his work in Hollywood, he attained international acclaim in his position as Jacqueline Kennedy’s official designer. Canada and Europe If Europe had thought of America as crude and unsophisticated, a single look at Jacqueline Kennedy replaced that image with one of culture, sophistication, and style. When she accompanied her husband on state visits to Canada and Europe, the crowds clamored for “Jackie” as much as for the president—inducing Kennedy to introduce himself at a press luncheon as “the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris.” (Memorialized here among the video clips of their travels abroad.) Jacqueline Kennedy beguiled world leaders with her style—not only her clothes but her conversation, her charm, her knowledge of French language, history, and culture. She acted as interpreter between her husband and Charles de Gaulle and helped diffuse the tension between Kennedy and Khrushchev, who seemed absolutely smitten by the young woman in the beaded gown. Many of the costumes on these trips were by French designers—Pierre Cardin, for example, dressed her in a bright red, martial-cut suit to greet the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (a great cover shot for Life), and Givenchy designed her evening dress for Versailles. But it was Cassini, with his inimitable sense of theater, who dressed her in an austere, floor-length black dress and dramatic black mantilla over a Spanish comb for her audience with Pope John XXIII. Continue