Spectacled Birthday
Her style woke up the world to streamlined suits, kitten heels and pillbox hats, but the First Lady was also a master of block colour. In head-to-toe hues of butterscotch, rose and Sleeping Beauty blue, Jacqueline Kennedy's single-shade suits of the 1960s came peppered with pillbox hats, pearls and a Palm Beach tan. Whether in a sweeping black gown and matching mantilla to meet Pope John XXIII in Rome or a tomato-coloured, two-piece day dress to take her televised tour of the White House, Kennedy was the queen of streamlined silhouettes in columns of colour. From the fawn coat and pillbox hat she wore for JFK's inauguration to the infamous pink bouclé suit she was wearing on the day of his death, the First Lady's wardrobe has long been embraced by designers, essayed by academics and memorialised in museums. Every Halston hat, shantung silk shift dress and come-to-Connecticut kitten heel now holds its own place in American history. With modernity as her muse, Kennedy famously shrugged off the puffy sleeves and pinched waists of the 1950s in favour of a new look when she entered the White House. Although still partial to Givenchy and Dior, she enlisted designer Oleg Cassini to create her official First Lady wardrobe. He attired her in lime, pumpkin and apricot tones vibrantly prescribed to match her personality. They collaborated on A-line dresses and couture gowns companioned with white gloves, big buttons and cockade detail in art-influenced shades of Veronese green and Nattier blue. Paling away from pastel shades in the Onassis era, Jackie O swung seamlessly into 1970s trouser suits in jewel shades, dandelion and denim. In bug sunshades and big-buckle belts
