FRANCE: The Kennedys brought their glamour to Paris this week with an exhibition on Jackie's personal dress style. Angela Long was there
Paris and the Kennedys: those words encapsulate the style of the 20th century. Add a dollop of fresh American glamour to the historic elegance of the French capital, and the pairing conjures up such images of charisma, energy and tragedy that all human life is, momentarily, there.
An exhibition just opened at the Louvre presents the most elegant of the Kennedy pantheon, Jacqueline, in a show featuring many of her actual clothes, accessories and photographs.
Jacqueline Kennedy: Les Années Maison-Blanche (The White House Years) had a lavish opening last Monday with a private banquet for a distinguished group, which included the former SDLP leader, John Hume, and his wife, Pat, who are friends of the Kennedy family.
Actresses Catherine Deneuve and Kristin Scott-Thomas, and designers Azzedine Alaia and Giorgio Armani attended, along with what used to be called "le tout Paris", including resonant political names such as Chirac (but Madame only), Pompidou (ditto), and a raft of personalities from the aristocracy. There were comtes and princesses galore, according to the intimidating line-up of seven hostesses who welcomed, and usually outnumbered, parties of arriving guests in the vast building on the rue de Rivoli.
Caroline Kennedy, Jackie's only surviving child, was there, truly elegant, and as slim as her mother, in a black, long-sleeved gown, accompanied by her husband, art historian Edwin Schlossberg. Her uncle Ted and cousin Kara were also in the select assembly, which feasted on roasted sea bass and baked pears with chocolate, washed down with Laurent Perrier champagne, pink, in honour of Jackie's favourite colour.
The splendour, and the big turn-out of the famous, reflected the awe (if it is possible for Parisians to harbour such an emotion) which the former First Lady, who died in 1994, still inspires. After the exclusive dinner, the exhibition was opened to the public, but even at the showing restricted to press and fashion industry, there was a 45-minute wait to get in the doors, with a queue stretching down two blocks.
Why such a fuss? "Because she was Jackie," said one veteran follower of fashion, fighting to keep her voluminous coat by her sides, as the warm steam surged up from subterranean Paris.
The exhibition, taken from the collection of the John F. Kennedy Museum in Washington, features more than 70 outfits, accessories, magazines from the day with Jackie on the cover, videos of her showing off her redecoration of the White House, and charming the French and other nationalities with her command of languages.
The first exhibit which meets the eye is the suit she wore for JFK's inauguration in January 1961, a beige Oleg Cassini dress and coat, with the hat that went around the world, the simple cream pillbox, and, touchingly, some very practical cosy boots for that freezing Washington day, a pair of fur-trimmed Manolo Blahnik brown suede high-heels with a fluffy fur trim. Her extraordinary appeal comes home with a shock when a little further along one sees the Time magazine cover for that day: Jackie was on the cover, not John (although a photo of him being sworn in did make the following week's cover.) The clothes look remarkably suitable for 2002, with their simple, elegant lines, solid colours and classic fabrics. There is the long black dress she wore for her audience with Pope John XXIII in 1962. There are superb evening gowns, including a coral pink sequined sheath that apparently enchanted Nikita Khrushchev.
There are oddities, such as a brightly-painted circular plaque, which a grateful Indian nation presented, as the inscription says, to "Jacqueline Kennedy, Supersonic First Lady of the USA", after her solo tour there in 1962. From that tour, there is a photo eerie in its prescience of another, later icon of femininity. It shows Jackie, in a blue dress and white gloves, standing all by herself in front of the Taj Mahal at Agra. She is standing and smiling, but otherwise it is just like the famous "lonely heart" photograph of Princess Diana some 30 years later.
Other photos of Jackie show her remarkable smile, always looking spontaneous and genuine, a far cry from the sombre woman in big sunglasses of the Onassis years.
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy had always loved France, being of French descent and a natural aesthete with a passion for art and design. In 1961 this relationship reached its apotheosis when she visited Paris with her husband, the President, on a tour memorable for both sides, and for JFK's mock self-description as "the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris".
Many hyperbolic things were said about Jackie Kennedy, including one fashion writer's declaration that she "was the most influential woman in fashion history".
Robert O'Byrne, who saw the exhibition during its sellout season in New York, is not overwhelmed by the Jackie legend, but thinks she was very shrewd in her fashion choices. "She was good at deciding, from early on, what her style was, and not changing it. She wore simple, bold colours, nothing patterned or fussy, for the reason that she stood out, she was immediately identifiable. She consciously set out for that image."
He wonders what would have happened to the Jackie look, as to so many aspects of late 20th-century life, if JFK had lived, and perhaps served a second term. "Jackie inspired Middle America to very ladylike dressing. It would have been interesting to see how she, as a First Lady, developed her style during the years of great social change at the end of the 1960s."
Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years runs at the Musée de la Mode et du Textile, part of the Louvre, at 107 rue de Rivoli, Paris, until March 16th, 2003