JACKIE KENNEDY’S PACKING LIST FOR TRAGIC TRIP

Jacqueline Kennedy’s recently resurfaced packing list for the fateful autumn trip to Texas she took with her then-husband, President John F. Kennedy, contains plenty of interest for fashion historians. In the margins of the weekend’s itinerary, which she had written out for her personal assistant, the first lady scheduled the visit outfit by outfit. For the day of Nov. 21, 1963, her look would be head-to-toe Chanel: a white coat, skirt and blouse, with a black hat atop her head and a gold and navy bracelet on her wrist (“safety pin,” she wrote underneath, perhaps in reference to its clasp). In the evening, she would don a black velvet dress with satin shoes and white kid gloves. And of course the jewelry had been considered: pearls with a diamond bracelet and earrings. Kennedy was not one to leave room for surprises. But even the best laid plans can change. The gloves, for one, surfaced on her descent from Air Force One in Houston, paired with the daytime Chanel suit. If she wore the bracelet, it went unseen. And the days that followed would stray much further from the first lady’s notes. Her bloodstained pink Chanel suit tells more acutely than any other image the story of what happened in Dallas on Friday, Nov. 22. But the notes she prepared for her personal assistant, Providencia Paredes, read as stage directions for a weekend of political theater and a catalog of the wardrobe that made her the most fashionable first lady of the 20th century, referenced by her successors to this day. Kennedy was best known, during her time in the White House, for the uniform of her public appearances: the tailored skirt suits, shift dresses, layered pearls, white gloves and pillbox hats photographed around the world. But her leisure wear — the equestrian gear, swimsuits and cotton summer clothes immortalized in photos of family trips — also became a part of her visual imprint. Many of those signature items were penciled into the itinerary for the Texas trip, including suits and dresses in summery shades of yellow, blue and green, and riding clothes for an appointment at Lyndon B. Johnson’s ranch on Nov. 23. There are many mentions in her notes of Oleg Cassini, the designer who became Kennedy’s personal dressmaker in 1961: a green wool suit (“for Mex not used”), a white crepe coat, a short pink crepe dress, a long mauve one, an orange coat and dress (“silk — worn in Udaipur, India — on lake”). Another favorite of the first lady, Gustave Tassell, appears on the packing list for a baby blue dress that Kennedy also wore in India. Her detailed lists, many of which make reference to past manifestations of the dresses, are a view into the mind of a woman who took both image and organization very seriously. Stacey Bredhoff, the curator of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, described Kennedy as a “meticulous planner” who concerned herself with every detail of ceremonial events: the guest lists, the menus, the seating arrangements, the flowers and of course the clothes.

JOHN F. KENNEDY LIBRARY FOUNDATION VIA THE NEW YORK TIMES Jacqueline Kennedy packed this Oleg Cassini dress, which she had worn on a trip to India, for her visit to Texas with her husband, President John F. Kennedy, in November 1963, when he was assassinated.