JACKIE OOH

SKIRTING the temptation to murmur something about all the world being a stage, it is worth pointing out that all good fashion…

SKIRTING the temptation to murmur something about all the world being a stage, it is worth pointing out that all good fashion contains an element of drama. Such was certainly true of the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's sense of dress, not least in the simple but devastatingly memorable style she brought to the funeral ceremonies after John F. Kennedy's assassination.

That mourning ensemble will once again be seen this week, not on the world's stage but within the more modest proportions of Dublin's Olympia Theatre. JFK - A Musical Drama begins its run of previews tonight and this morning we show a handful of its 150 plus costumes, all of them designed by Joe Vanek, who is also responsible for the stage set. Although the number of outfits sounds impressive, it doesn't pose too much of a challenge for Vanek. He had to produce just as many for Cliff Richard's Heathcliff and will be designing 300 costumes for the Royal Danish Ballet next spring.

What sets JFK apart from most other jobs is the immediacy of the period and the familiarity of the characters - and their clothes. In particular, almost every dress worn by Jackie Kennedy has been photographed and scrutinised over a 40 year period. The presidential years especially have been extensively catalogued by Oleg Cassini, the designer responsible for many of the clothes she wore during that period. The challenge for Vanek has been to come up with designs simultaneously fresh and yet sufficiently familiar to the audience not to look out of keeping with the era.

"All the clothes worn by Jackie in this show are original designs," Vaaek insists "based on elements of actual clothes used in a new combination - nothing to be sued over by Cassini." The nature of theatre means that he has also drawn on a wider spectrum of colours than did Jackie Kennedy, plus many more textured fabrics. Materials in the show might have two or three colour weaves to provide more depth and "work better under the lights; her clothes were very flat, basic pastels which could look a touch bare on stage and glare in the lights".

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Arranging colour on stage is an important if little recognised element of the costume designer's art. "Jackie gets more colour as she becomes more involved in the story. Rose Kennedy, on the other hand, is bright from the start because she was always upfront. Colours denote focus. For example, in one scene set at a formal English dinner, everyone is in black and white except for Rose who's dressed in lavender." By contrast, female guests at the Kennedy inaugural ball are all being dressed in hot pinks and tarnoise, even though this was not necessarily what was worn at the time.

The range of costumes designed by Vanek is another challenge to his abilities, spanning every social sector from manual workers to the president and his family. With a cast of 32 in the musical, on average each actor has between six and eight costume changes. Vanek's task has been to balance all these elements so that the end result is as harmonious as the songs in the show.