IN DELUXE LINEN SLIPCASE CLAMSHELL BOX SLEEVE
CONDITION NOTE:
SOME EDGE BUMPING ON OUTER BOX OTHERWISE...
IN LIKE NEW CONDITION
Product description
This illustrated volume celebrates the 40th anniversary of
Jacqueline Kennedy's emergence as America's First Lady and explores her
enduring global influence on style and fashion.
Did the clothes make Jackie, or did Jackie make the clothes?
Decide for yourself: Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years
is a stunning catalog of some of Jacqueline Kennedy's most important
dresses as worn during her years as first lady of the United States.
As
visually sleek and elegant as Mrs. Kennedy herself, the book offers a
beautiful analysis of the stunning, simple outfits that typified the
Jackie style and brought a breath of sleek modernity to the White House
after the somewhat frumpy fussiness of previous first lady Bess Truman.
Released to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Kennedy's "emergence"
as a style icon, the book presents an eclectic selection of suits,
evening dresses, daywear, and accessories from the John F. Kennedy
Library and Museum collection.
Divided into cities where each item was
first worn, the gowns, suits, and dresses are first presented alone in a
full-page color photo.
Each is then accompanied by various photos of
Jackie wearing the item and detailed design notes, history, and
anecdotes behind the outfit.
These photos give a
wonderful context to the clothes, and it's clear that Jackie's carriage
and persona injected life into these garments--which sometimes appear
markedly different from what one might deduce as each item's
"personality" when simply viewing it alone.
For example, a pale cream
embroidered silk Givenchy evening gown looks dull and somewhat dowdy
when seen alone, but the accompanying photograph of Jackie wearing it
while cuddling a newborn John Kennedy Jr. transforms the dress into
something feminine and timeless.
Or a very simple, innocently pretty
pink shantung evening gown by Guy Douvier becomes arrestingly sexy when
she wears it with nothing but white gloves and a Palm Beach tan.
Contextualizing and interpreting Kennedy's style is an important part of
this book. Featured are essays on Jackie and her effect on the world of
style by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Kennedy friend Rachel Lambert
Mellon, and the book's author and Vogue editor at large, Hamish Bowles.
Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years accompanies an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
The focus here is Jackie's famous and much emulated wardrobe.
Each
gown, suit, and accessory has an informational entry that includes a
photograph of Jackie wearing the item.
The selections highlight the
first lady's savvy and sensitivity to the symbolic nature of dress.
At a
1962 White House dinner for 49 Nobel Laureates, she looked like a
"modern-day muse" in a "liquid, columnar dress suggestive of ancient
statuary."
A red wool twill Pierre Cardin suit, worn in Canada for her
international debut as first lady, was "perceived as a stylish and
calculated compliment to the uniforms of the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police."
The book provides a wonderful context for the images (many
never before seen) while giving readers an enjoyable look at the woman
who was arguably our most elegant first lady. Product details
- Publisher
:
Bulfinch Press; (May 13, 2001)
- Language
:
English
- Hardcover
:
198 pages
- ISBN-10
:
9780821227459
- ISBN-13
:
978-0821227459
- Item Weight
:
3 pounds
- Dimensions
:
9.5 x 1 x 12.25 inches
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