Jackie Kennedy’s Infamous Pink Skirt-Suit
- nora comtois
- May 30
- 10 min read
First Lady Jackie Kennedy had already worn this outfit at least six times prior (Horyn 2013), but it was one of President John F. Kennedy’s favorites. He thought she looked “smashing” in it (Hallemann 2021), so he asked her to wear that outfit again on that day, not knowing it would be the last time he would ever see her wear it (Faust 2022) or the significance it would later have in history: Jackie Kennedy’s pink skirt-suit is now an emblem for an American tragedy and a symbol for the emotional trauma Kennedy endured during this tragedy, as well as for the fortitude she kept while in the spotlight of her grieving country.
Kennedy knew that, as First Lady, anything she wore would make a statement in American fashion. So even just days after her husband was elected President — even while still on her hospital bed from giving birth to their son, John Junior — Kennedy started the process of choosing a fashion designer to become her personal courtier for her new public role (Holt 2017).
She ended up choosing fashion designer Oleg Cassin of Chez Ninon — a Manhattan high-end, custom dressmaking salon (Chernikoff 2012). As the Kennedys were the first political couple in the television age, Kennedy knew she needed to keep up her appearances (Severo 2006). Cassini understood that her “... clothing needed to be read from a distance, and had to have a clarity of line and strong color (Severo 2006), and it’s clear that he met Kennedy’s expectations as he went on to create more than three-hundred looks for her through her time as First Lady (Jelen 2021). Even in just the first year of Kennedy’s presidency, she spent about $50,000 of her husband’s salary on her wardrobe (Betts 2014).
Every clothing item she wore became an instant bestseller, and every way she wore the items became a new trend in American fashion. Even on the day of the inauguration she created a new trend: When Kennedy stepped out of the car at the east front of the United States Capitol, she placed her hand atop her pillbox hat in order to keep it in place during the windy weather; this created a dimple on the top of the hat. Within months, this style of hat was selling in department stores all across the country (Ponsford 2019).
President Kennedy was proud to be the husband of an American fashion icon. At Fort Worth's Chamber of Commerce breakfast, Kennedy joked that “Nobody wonders what Lyndon [Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson] and I wear,” — not knowing that this would be his last speech (Byrne 2000).
Later that day, on November 22nd, 1963, the Kennedys sat in the backseat of a convertible car on their way to another speech that President Kennedy was to give in Dallas, Texas (Morrison 2003). Texas Governor, John Connally, and his wife, Nellie Connally, sat in the seats in front of them. At 12:30pm, when the car turned off of Main Street at Dealey Plaza, a man named Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at President Kennedy. The first shot was a miss, but the second shot passed through the president's neck and then into the governor’s back. When the third bullet struck President Kennedy’s head, he fell into his wife’s lap, staining her pink skirt-suit dark red (“November 22, 1963: Death of the President” n.d.). At that very moment, she became a widow.
Connally says that she heard Kennedy cry out, “They have killed my husband. I have his brains in my hand” as she climbed onto the backhood of the car (Morrison 2003). Lady Bird Johnson — Lyndon’s wife — said that she recalls looking back over her shoulder from another car in which she “...saw a bundle of pink, just like a drift blossom lying” (Elliott 2006).
Both at the Parkland Hospital in Dallas and during the ride back to the White House, Kennedy refused to change clothes or clean-up her appearance. According to multiple sources, she said “Let them see what they have done,” as she stood alongside Lyndon while he took the Presidential oath on their flight back to Washington (Kettler 2020). Kennedy continued to wear this blood-stained outfit for more than twelve hours after the assassination — it wasn’t until President Kennedy’s casket was placed in the White House’s East Room that she changed clothes (Ross 2019). Afterwards, her personal maid, Providencia Paredes, put the stained outfit in a bag so Kennedy wouldn’t have to be reminded of the tragedy.
Despite the outfit being out of sight, it wasn’t out of mind. Kennedy suffered from post traumatic stress disorder for the next thirty-one years — the rest of her life (Leaming 2015). Because of her vivid flashbacks and nightmares, she drank heavily and took pills to cope (Taraborrelli 2019). Also suffering from survivor’s guilt, Kennedy constantly tried to think of ways in which she could have saved her husband that day. “If I had just been a little more to one side, it could have been me,” she said (Taraborrelli 2019). “It should’ve been me instead” (Leaming 2015). At one point, a priest named Father McSorley said Kennedy asked him, "Do you think that God would separate me from my husband if I killed myself?" (Murphy 2003). It wasn’t until after years and years of therapy later that Kennedy said she felt “relatively sane” (Leaming 2015).
The pink skirt-suit Kennedy wore on that traumatic day was a bright pink — the choice of color perhaps being a nod to Kennedy’s predecessor, former First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. In 1953, Eisenhower popularized the femininity of the color pink in fashion when she wore a pink gown to her husband’s presidential inauguration; that color became known as “Mamie Pink” (Beeck 2022). Kennedy too was known for the color pink. Before she became the First Lady, an article in The Washington Post/Times Herald wrote “Pink is pink, whether it’s Mamie or Jackie. So hang on to those pink dresses, ladies. If Senator Kennedy wins the November race for the White House, pink will still be a high-fashion color” (Pascarell Brown 2012).
In matching pink hues, both the jacket and the skirt of the outfit were made of wool and were in a woven tweed fabric known as bouclé (Faust 2022). The jacket was double-breasted with six gold buttons and four pockets, with two on each side. The pipe trimming of the buttons, pockets, and the sleeves — as well as the lapels — were navy blue. Underneath the suit, Kennedy wore a navy blue blouse and skin-colored tights (Ponic 2017). Additionally, she wore a matching pink pillbox hat with navy blue pipe trimming on its crown, along with a matching navy blue handbag and heels with a gold buckle and chain. She accessorized the outfit with a pearl necklace, a gold bangle, and white gloves.
The design was from the Chanel Fall/Winter 1961 collection, but the actual garment wasn’t an original Chanel piece (Faust 2022). Traditionally, First Ladies were to wear only American fashion brands, so Kennedy’s personal courtier (Oleg Cassini) fitted and sewed a replica of the design, a process called line-to-line (Chernikoff 2012). This allowed Kennedy to keep up with the European trends while remaining patriotic to America. All of the fabrics, buttons, and trim were from Chanel’s atelier at 31 Rue Cambon in Paris, but the garment was sewed by Cassini (Milligan 2012). Compared to an over $10,000 authentic, custom-made Chanel suit, Ninon’s replica only cost between $800 and $1,000 (Waller 2011).
It makes sense that the First Lady wore a garment like this. In the 1920s and 1930s, fashion designer Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel had revolutionized women’s fashion by swapping restrictive garments, like corsets, with looser garments, like wide-leg trousers; the skirt-suit was no exception (Cerini 2021). In the 1960s, it became a staple in the wardrobes of many upper-class women (Cerini 2021). It stood as an emblem of the independent woman because its design was similar to a man’s suit, but the bottom was a skirt instead of pants which made the look more feminine.
The square shape of Kennedy’s jacket and the wide sleeves contrasted her feminine silhouette, while the bodycon skirt — along with the bright pink color of the outfit — emphasized her femininity. Together, the look was ambiguous, connoting strength and power through its masculine shape and connoting class and grace through its more feminine proportions and palette. And after the trauma Kennedy endured, and the fortitude she had during, the outfit became even more fitting.
Although it was in preservation by the U.S. National Archives since the 1963, Kennedy’s pink skirt-suit didn’t legally belong to the Kennedys’ daughter, Caroline Kennedy, until after her mother’s death in 1994 (Militano 2022). In 2003, the daughter gifted the outfit to the custody of the National Archives Building in College Park, Maryland (“Gift of Historical Materials Relating to Jacqueline B. Kennedy to ...” 2003), the building where Oswald’s rifle, bullets, and the bullet fragments from the shootings are also stored (Thompson 2021). Although the outfit was missing the pillbox hat and white gloves — which were lost on the day of the assassination (Militano 2022) — the outfit did come with a handwritten note by Kennedy’s mother — Janet Lee Bouvier Auchincloss — reading “Jackie's suit and bag worn Nov. 22, 1963” (“Gift of Historical Materials Relating to Jacqueline B. Kennedy to ...” 2003).
Still stained with President Kennedy’s blood, the public has not seen Kennedy’s pink skirt-suit since the day of the assassination; only the National Archives workers have seen it. The outfit will not be displayed publicly until the year 2103 — in another eighty years — per request of the Kennedys’ daughter (Militano 2022). Until then, the outfit will remain stored within a custom-made, acid free container in a windowless vault. The room temperature of the vault is kept from 65 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit, and the air is changed three times an hour in order to protect the wool and cloth fabrics of the outfit (Kaye 2013).
Although others of Kennedy’s outfits are on display in countless museum exhibitions, none of them will ever compare to the outfit she wore on that fateful day in 1963. Kennedy’s infamous pink skirt-suit will forever be a part of the American Lexicon of Fashion alongside other iconic fashion moments in fashion history (Ponic 2017).
Beeck, Ellie. “The Colorful History of Pink.” V Magazine, 20 July 2022, https://vmagazine.com/article/the-colorful-history-of-pink/.
Berkeley, Kaite. “The Pink suit1: Jacqueline Kennedy and Celebrity Defilement.” Taylor and Francis Online, 10 Sept. 2013, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19392397.2013.817762.
Betts, Hannah. “The Heaven and Hell of Being Jackie Kennedy.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 16 May 2014, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/johnfkennedy/10836781/The-heaven-and-hell-of-being-Jackie-Kennedy.html.
Byrne, Jeb. “The Hours before Dallas.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, 2000, https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2000/summer/jfk-last-day-1.
Cerini, Marianna. “How Coco Chanel Changed the Course of Women's Fashion.” CNN, Cable News Network, 9 Jan. 2021, https://www.cnn.com/style/article/coco-chanel-fashion-50-years/index.html.
Chernikoff, Leah. “Karl Lagerfeld Says Oleg Cassini Knocked off That Pink 'Chanel' Suit Jackie Kennedy Wore the Day JFK Was Assassinated.” Fashionista, Fashionista, 29 Mar. 2012, https://fashionista.com/2012/03/karl-lagerfeld-says-oleg-cassini-knocked-off-that-pink-chanel-suit-jackie-kennedy-wore-the-day-jfk-was-assassinated.
Elliott, Debbie. “Lady Bird Marked JFK's Death with Audio Diary Entry.” NPR, NPR, 19 Nov. 2006, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6510685.
Faust, Ella. “What Happened to Jackie Kennedy's Pink Suit?” CR Fashionbook, 27 Mar. 2022, https://crfashionbook.com/culture-a33380200-jackie-kennedy-chanel-suit-jfk/.
“Gift of Historical Materials Relating to Jacqueline B. Kennedy to ...” The National Archives and Records Administration, 13 Aug. 2003, https://www.archives.gov/files/foia/pdf/kennedy-dress.pdf.
Gruber, Lauren. “The Fascinating History Behind Jackie Kennedy's Pink Suit - Chanel Suit JFK Assassination.” L'Officiel USA, L'Officiel, 28 July 2022, https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/history-behind-jackie-kennedy-pink-suit-chanel-jfk.
Hallemann, Caroline. “Why You Won't See Jackie Kennedy's Iconic Pink Suit on Display in a Museum.” Town & Country, Town & Country, 2 Nov. 2021, https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/news/a8174/jackie-kennedy-pink-suit/.
Holt, Bethan. “How Jackie Kennedy Became the First Lady of Power Dressing.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 15 Jan. 2017, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/style/jackie-kennedy-became-first-lady-power-dressing/.
Horyn, Cathy. “Jacqueline Kennedy's Smart Pink Suit, Preserved in Memory and Kept out of View.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 15 Nov. 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/fashion/jacqueline-kennedys-smart-pink-suit-preserved-in-memory-and-kept-out-of-view.html.
“The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy.” The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy | JFK Library, https://www.jfklibrary.org/visit-museum/exhibits/permanent-exhibits/the-inauguration-of-john-f-kennedy.
Jelen, Greta. “Oleg Cassini: The Couturier to Camelot - Jackie Kennedy Secretary of Style Designer.” L'Officiel USA, L'Officiel, 10 Apr. 2021, https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/who-was-oleg-cassini-jackie-kennedy-designer.
Kaye, Randi. “50 Years Later, Jackie Kennedy's Pink Suit Locked Away from View.” CNN, Cable News Network, 22 Nov. 2013, https://www.cnn.com/2013/11/21/us/jacqueline-kennedy-pink-suit/index.html.
Kettler, Sara. “Why Jacqueline Kennedy Didn’t Take Off Her Pink Suit after JFK Was Assassinated.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 16 June 2020, https://www.biography.com/news/jacqueline-kennedy-pink-suit-jfk-assassination.
Leaming, Barbara. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: The Untold Story. Thomas Dunne Books, 2015, https://www.amazon.com/Jacqueline-Bouvier-Kennedy-Onassis-Untold/dp/1250070252.
Militano, Hannah. “Why Jackie Kennedy's Iconic Pink Suit Won't Be on Display until 2103.” Grazia USA, Grazia USA, 8 Aug. 2022, https://graziamagazine.com/us/articles/jackie-kennedy-pink-suit-history/.
Milligan, Lauren. “‘Chanel Copy.’” British Vogue, British Vogue, 3 Apr. 2012, https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/jacqueline-kennedy-pink-chanel-dress-assassination.
Morrison, Nick. “'They've Killed My Husband. I Have His Brains in My Hand.'.” The Northern Echo, The Northern Echo, 21 Nov. 2003, https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/7008729.theyve-killed-husband-brains-hand-/.
“November 22, 1963: Death of the President.” JFK Library, https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/november-22-1963-death-of-the-president.
Murphy, Caryle. “Jackie Kennedy's Spiritual Crisis.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 13 Nov. 2003, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2003/11/13/jackie-kennedys-spiritual-crisis/69f9a637-62f2-47af-9bd6-525b5e4bcba0/.
Pascarell Brown, Barbara. “Pretty in Pink: Jacqueline Kennedy and the - ProQuest.” State University of New York at Albany ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2012, https://www.proquest.com/docview/1038409713?fromopenview=true&pq-origsite=gscholar&fromunauthdoc=true.
Ponic, Jason. “What Happened to Jackie Kennedy's Pink Suit?” Owlcation, Owlcation, 22 Feb. 2017, https://owlcation.com/humanities/jackiekennedy.
Ponsford, Matthew. “Remember When Jackie Kennedy Wore Her Famous Pillbox Hat?” CNN, Cable News Network, 8 Aug. 2019, https://www.cnn.com/style/article/jackie-kennedy-inauguration-pillbox-hat-remember-when/index.html.
Ross, Martha. “Whatever Happened to Jackie Kennedy's Pink Suit?” The Mercury News, The Mercury News, 25 Nov. 2019, https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/23/whatever-happened-to-jackie-kennedys-pink-suit/.
Severo, Richard, and Ruth La Ferla. “Oleg Cassini, Designer for the Stars and Jacqueline Kennedy, Dies at 92.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Mar. 2006, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/fashion/oleg-cassini-designer-for-the-stars-and-jacqueline-kennedy-dies-at.html.
Taraborrelli, J. Randy. Jackie, Janet & Lee: The Secret Lives of Janet Auchincloss and Her Daughters, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill. St. Martin's Griffin, 2019.
Thompson, Robert M. “How the JFK Assassination Bullets Were Digitally Preserved at NIST.” NIST, Robert M. Thompson, 10 Nov. 2021, https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/how-jfk-assassination-bullets-were-digitally-preserved-nist.
Waller Rogers, Lisa. “Chez Ninon.” Lisa's History Room, 12 Feb. 2011, https://lisawallerrogers.com/tag/chez-ninon/.