That suit. The Chanel-style suit First Lady Jackie Kennedy wore on November 22, 1963 in Dallas. The pink suit, with navy blue lapels and a matching pillbox hat, she arrived in at the Dallas airport and greeted admirers while clutching red roses. The suit, which one Secret Service agent said looked fluorescent in the bright sun as she sat in the back of a dark blue limousine next to the president. The suit which now rests in the National Archives, stained now for 50 years with the blood of her husband and our president, John F. Kennedy.
A weighty piece of clothing forever holding in its weave that momentous day.
The suit was a Chanel copy made for Mrs. Kennedy by Chez Ninon, a NYC Park Avenue salon. A favorite of her husband’s, she’d worn it six times before. On that day she paired it with a navy blue blouse, shoes and handbag and white kid gloves – a classic look of the era. The matching hat and the gloves are missing, but the rest of the outfit are in the archives with instructions from the family not to be publicly shown until 2103.
Jackie Kennedy refused to change out of that suit for the quick swearing-in of Lyndon B. Johnson saying, “I want them to see what they have done.” Nor would the suit ever be cleaned.
The suit was put in a bag by her personal assistant and then in 1964 it arrived at the National Archives with a note from Mrs. Kennedy’s mother simply saying, Jackie’s suit and bag – worn November 22, 1963.
OverDressed for Life 