Ted Kennedy - interviewed by Oleg Cassini, 1980s (Part 2 of 2)

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• published: 28 Aug 2011
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"All rights reserved to the respected copyright holders including but not limited to Oleg Cassini, Inc." NEW YORK — Oleg Cassini, who designed the dresses that helped make Jacqueline Kennedy the most glamorous first lady in history, died Friday. He was 92. Cassini died at a Long Island hospital, said his widow, Marianne. She said her husband was taken to the hospital after complaining of a headache last Saturday, but that he did not have a stroke. "He was a tremendous, tremendous person," she said. Kennedy, only 31 when her husband was elected president, was the pinnacle of style in the White House years from 1961 to 1963. Her simple, geometric dresses in sumptuous fabrics, her pillbox hats and her elegant coiffure were copied by women from 18 to 80. 'A new American elegance' Cassini said that shortly after John Kennedy was elected, he persuaded his wife that she should use him as the creator of her total look, rather than one of many designers. The one-time Hollywood costume designer turned couturier had been friendly with the Kennedy family for years. "We are on the threshold of a new American elegance thanks to Mrs. Kennedy's beauty, naturalness, understatement, exposure and symbolism," Cassini said when his selection was announced. The fashion establishment was shocked, Women's Wear Daily journalist John Fairchild wrote in his 1965 book "The Fashionable Savages." "Everyone was surprised," he wrote. "Oleg Cassini had been around for years. He was debonair, amusing, social, but none of the fashion intellectuals had considered him an important designer." Image: First lady Jacqueline Kennedy AP file First lady Jacqueline Kennedy, wearing a pink and white straw lace dress designed by Oleg Cassini and President John F. Kennedy leave the Quai D'Orsay ministry for the Elysee Palace reception during their official visit in Paris, France, on May 31, 1961. Cassini was born in 1913 in Paris to wealthy, aristocratic Russian parents who were later forced to flee their homeland after the Revolution. They settled in Italy, their fortune gone, but his mother gained some success as a dressmaker and her son eventually decided to go into the fashion business, too.