Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years
 Hamish Bowles
 (Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
 2001 Bulfinch Press Book/Little, Brown & Co.
  ISBN: 0821227459

This beautifully illustrated book of the 40th Anniversary Exhibition at the John F. Kennedy Library & Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, celebrates Jacqueline Kennedy's emergence as America's First Lady & explores her enduring influence on style & fashion.

When I took this tome out of its mailer & began to turn its pages, I suddenly remembered my own set of formal white cotton gloves -- long since discarded -- so reverential was the aura emanating from this glossy artbook.

With a historic perspective by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. & a personal reminiscence by Rachel Lambert Mellon, we are welcomed back to another time, to those bright & shining years we called Camelot...& the stage is set.

This is an in-depth look at the clothes & the era of a First Lady who became a beacon of style at the beginning of a decade renown for its fabulous fashion. Herein is presented a selection of gowns, suits, dresses, & accessories with how & of what they were made set among personal notes, paintings & anecdotes of the life & times of the 35th President & his First Lady.

I never saw Mrs. Kennedy (the title she preferred) in anything other than black & white photographs in the press or grainy newsreels in cinemas, so it was refreshing & eye-opening to see the amazing colors this woman of fashion enjoyed -- palest greens & blues, straw, off-whites & pinks. Then a solid full-blown fuchsia silk shantung with ruffle takes your breath away. On to those darted two piece suits & those hats that became her trademark. How I hated those hats! & how amused I was to discover that she too, loathed them.

Dresses & jackets of the palest pastels to that astonishingly mundane & durable houndstooth outfit she wore on the campaign trail. Her Inauguration suit of pale green & her Inaugural Ball gown of straw, complete with cockade. In the same way horse people avoid referring to white horses as white -- everywhere in this book, the wearing of white is a must, even when the fabrics most certainly are not -- the long gloves are white -- a glaringly old-fashioned hangover from earlier times.

In one series of photos from an evening of culture at The White House, Mrs. Kennedy retains her bicep-high white gloves while draping herself in sea-green chiffon -- reminiscent of ancient statuary togas. I regret the choice to zoom in on this creation, thus cutting off its full splendor. When Mrs. Kennedy does wear figured fabrics -- they are always symmetrically perfect & gorgeous. When she poses for a portrait in a European-style brocade-ish material -- she looks quite dowdy.

Jacqueline Kennedy kept it simple -- most of her clothes were in solid colors with only huge buttons, cockades or discreet stylized bows, scarves, shawls or frogs for detail. In the Travel Chapter we see the simplicity of her wardrobe & her passion for colors.

Combining original & new photographs, this volume presents images we have rarely seen, as well as photos that have become a part of our national consciouness. The final one of the President & First Lady together in the open touring auto needs no words -- we all know what happened next.

Certainly a treasure of memories -- where we were, what we wore, what we wished we could wear. I never realized how Mrs. Kennedy acquired her wardrobe assuming, incorrectly, that she always wore top-of-the-line haute couture -- when in actuality they were “knock-offs”, sometimes chosen by her mother-in-law.

Hamish Bowles is European editor at large of Vogue & curator of the exhibition from which this books gets its title.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. was special assistant to President Kennedy & is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian & author of numerous books, including A Thousand Days & A Life in the Twentieth Century.

Rachel Lambert Mellon is a garden designer & distinguished horticulturist. At the request of President Kennedy, she redesigned the Rose Garden at the White House. She also designed the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, which was dedicated by Lady Bird Johnson in 1965.
(07/01/01)

Rebecca