When Jackie Kennedy accompanied her newly inaugurated husband, John F. Kennedy, into the White House – almost 56 years ago to this day – the 31-year-old New Yorker set a new precedent for First Ladies. Shrewd, well-educated and possessed of a discerning eye for style, she embraced her role as a means of invoking positive changes that reflected her husband’s political ideas. This extended from her redecoration of the White House, which included the replacement of mock period pieces with real antiques to re-establish a sense of heritage, through her patronage of the arts and her own, thoroughly chic wardrobe choices, which set the tone for many of the 60s most glamorous trends. “Jackie was very concerned about the image she portrayed of JFK’s government,” explains Madeline Fontaine, the costume designer behind Jackie, Chilean director Pablo Larrain’s acclaimed biopic of the fated First Lady, starring an Oscar-tipped Natalie Portman. “The elegance she showed in every situation, even while relaxing on holiday, proves this: she was never captured by surprise not looking perfect.”
And Fontaine should know, having spent hours poring over footage of Kennedy in order to recreate her distinctive look for the film, which hones in on Jackie in the week following JFK’s assassination in November 1963. While such an epic task would prove daunting for most, the French designer, who is also the woman behind the costumes for Jalil Lespert’s recent Yves Saint Laurent biopic, as well as Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s beloved masterpiece Amélie, couldn’t wait to get started. “It was an exciting challenge,” she remembers. “We knew we’d have to come as close as possible to the collective memory of Jackie established over the course of those days, which were so well documented by the media, but it was also very important to get the emotion just right; to help Natalie on her way to becoming Jackie.”
What struck her most about the First Lady’s sartorial choices was their continental overtones. “You can really feel the years she spent in Europe,” she says, “and especially in Paris, in her references of fashion and elegance.” This is translated to many of the film’s looks, from the scarlet, woollen Dior dress that Kennedy wore to give her famous 1963 television tour of the White House (an event painstakingly recreated by Larraín and interspersed with real footage to incredibly authentic effect) to the understated cream jumper and black A-line skirt she wore during her famous interview with Life Magazine journalist Theodore H. White following JFK’s death – the film’s narrative focal point.
