How to Wear a Hat

When I was at Fenwicks in London (which is such a great store!) recently, trying on whimsical hat after whimsical hat, I wished we wore hats more often.  They are like candy for the head and whose head could not use a little candy : )

One of my favorite lines in one of the The Thin Man movies is when someone shouts out to Mrs. Nora Charles, "look at the screwy hat on that dame!"

To all dames with screwy hats... Happy Easter!

Madonna at the premiere of Evita in John Galliano:

Marlene Dietrich in a hat looking fabulous:

Audrey Hepburn in a hat - could not choose just one:

Not technically a hat but a head scarf on Jackie Kennedy Onassis:

Hats at the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton:

Sarah Jessica Parker has worn some fun hats:

and who can forget the late, great Isabella Blow...

xo, Juliana

Happy Monday! Porthault Sale is On!

I love Porthault sheets and towels.  In my last post on Givenchy's guest bedroom for Mrs. Mellon, Givenchy had Mrs. Mellon's bed ready and waiting with white Porthualt sheets sprigged with blue flowers.  The Duchess of Windsor loved Porthault sheets adorned with a generous amount of embroidery and a copious amount of coronets : )  The artist Jacqueline Duheme painted Jackie Kennedy resting up in London ensconced comfortably in a lovely set of pink and white Porthault sheets.  And lest you think Porthault is just for grande dames, those arbiters of cool, Inez van Lamswerde and Vinoodh Matadin love Porthault sheets for their home and even for their ad campaigns.

And I especially love Porthault sheets and towels on sale!

Jacqueline Duheme 'Resting Up, London'

Duchess of Windsor's Porthault sheets

Photo from Inez's Instagram

Inez and Vinoodh ad campaign for their jean collaboration with Frame Denim.

xo, Juliana

Back to School

Tomorrow my children return to school - summer really is over.  I have to try and pull my school drop off style together, I don't think I could ever be quite as done as Jacqueline Kennedy dropping off John Kennedy Jr but a mamma can aspire...

love and kisses, Juliana

Mrs. Kennedy, Oleg Cassini, Francois Zecca and The Pink Suit

In November 1963, President John F. Kennedy and the First Lady of the United States were getting ready to leave for Dallas.  President Kennedy asked his wife to wear the pink suit because it was one of his favorites and he thought Jackie looked "smashing" in it.

Years ago, my husband's grandparents had a cocktail party, where I met the painter, Bill Walton, who had chaired the White House Committee on Fine Arts during the Kennedy Presidency.  Walton was very close to the Kennedys and I will never forget when Bill told me, President Kennedy could recognize exactly what designer a woman was wearing the moment she walked into a room.  Such a wonderful quality in a man, much less a President, don't you think?!

Bill Walton at JFK's 46th birthday party.  Photo from In the Kennedy Style

President Kennedy's father, Joe Kennedy, may have found Jackie's wardrobe bills alarming but Kennedy seemed to enjoy his wife sartorial fame and even quipped when they went to Paris, "I do not think it altogether inappropriate to introduce myself... I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it."

The pink suit Jackie wore in Dallas on November 22nd 1963, stained with blood, is packed away in an archival box in The National Archives.  Caroline Kennedy recently made a gift of the suit in 2003 with the provision the suit not be seen by the public for 100 years.  The pink suit, which was so emblematic of a young handsome president and his beautiful, glamorous wife, of a time of hope and optimism, sits unseen but well remembered.

My husband has an online magazine, Axis of Oversteer, devoted to car racing and wasn't I surprised when he said one of his racing buddies, Robert Zecca of Driving Impressions, father made the pink suit Jackie Kennedy wore in Dallas in 1963.  Robert Zecca shared this remembrance today, the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's death, of how that pink suit reminds him not just of Jackie but of his father, Francois Zecca, too.  Francois Zecca made the pink suit Jackie wore that day in November fifty years ago.  I don't think this story has ever been publicly told...

Francois Zecca was born in Italy.  During the war he was imprisoned by the the Nazis in Italy, Zecca escaped in the middle of the night and made his way to Paris to see his mother before she died.  His father was a tailor in Paris and when Paris was occupied, Nazi officer's would come to their apartment to be fitted for a suit.  Francois Zecca had just escaped and was hiding in a closet during one of those visits.  The Zecca family moved to New York and the young Francois Zecca was hired by Oleg Cassini where he was the head designer for 17 years.  Oleg Cassini was chosen as the designer for the First Ladies wardrobe and Cassini assigned Zecca his very famous client.  

"Mrs. Kennedy had such marvelous taste... that all of the women across the country, copied her... that little pillbox... the sleeveless shift.  It was epidemic, that wardrobe."

Betty Ford

Robert Zecca: "Oleg hired my father to personally take care of her.  The outfit you see in this photo and many others were made by my father.  He loved Mrs. Kennedy and told me how nice she was and that she was the most elegant woman in the world.

Robert's brother, Mark, remembers November 22nd 1962...

"I remember being sent home from school that day and Dad was crying. That was the last collection he designed made for Jackie.   I remember him saying he had a bad feeling about the Dallas trip."

"Mrs. Kennedy's dress was stained with blood.  Somehow that was one of the most poignant sights - that immaculate woman, exquisitely dressed, and caked in blood."

Lady Bird Johnson

Robert remember's his father saying how nice Mrs. Kennedy was and they had gone together to Lake Como to choose silks for an upcoming collection.

Francois Zecca did not go to the White House, instead Mrs. Kennedy would come to New York and stay in a suite at the Waldorf Astoria where he would personally fit her.  He said that Mrs. Kennedy was a smoker and the two of them would converse in French.

Here is a photo given to Francois Zecca from President Kennedy.  It is inscribed:

'Dear Francois, With best wishes, President Kennedy'

Photo courtesy of Robert Zecca

 The handsome Francois Zecca and his wife:

Photo courtesy of Robert Zecca

I am very grateful and indebted to Robert Zecca for taking the time to share memories of his father with me and our RARE vintage blog readers.

Summer is... Valentino and Jackie Kennedy

Jackie Kennedy has always epitomized summer style to me.   Easy glamour, windswept hair, a head scarf, a flat sandal, a bit of a ruffle and Valentino by her side.

Have you seen the book 'Un Mito nel Mito' (which translates as a myth within a myth)?  It is a small book of photographs by Settimio Garritano of Jackie Kennedy Onassis' holidays in Capri from 1969-1973.

And to me it is the Bible of Summer Style...

Summer is Jackie Kennedy Onassis in a turquoise headscarf and sunglasses:

Summer is Jackie in a ruffled skirt (I love this outfit):

Summer is Jackie in a flat sandal - and better yet, an Agnelli:

Summer is Jackie and Valentino in Capri:

Summer is a turquoise Valentino silk skirt with a bit of a ruffle and a white tulle top trimmed with white beads which give the illusion of coral:

Just add your favorite sandals and a big ol' pair of sunnies and voliá!  Jackie style!

Valentino turquoise silk ruffle skirt, white tulle beaded top.  Size 6.  

Only available at RARE vintage.

Please email info@rarevintage.com or phone 212.581.7273 for more information.

Lilly Pulitzer, Dies at 81

When life gives you oranges what do you do?  You open a stand selling orange juice.  When juice stains your clothes what do you do?  You design brightly colored frocks so that the juice stains don't show.  When you went to school with the First Lady of the United States and she wears one of your dresses on the cover of Life Magazine what do you do?  You start selling dresses like crazy!  

Lilly Pulitzer you will not be forgotten, your colorful and happy dresses will be sought after in vintage stores and thrift shops by new generations of young girls who will delight in 60s Palm Beach chic!

Lilly Pulitzer

Dream a Little Dream: YSL

I have dreamed of this YSL coat since I first saw the photo of Jackie Kennedy wearing it in Ron Galella's book, Jacqueline.  (Which, by the way, is a must have for your library - I know, he was a bit of a stalker but the photos are fantastic - and I have a feeling that Jackie Kennedy probably eventually appreciated this visual diary.  I saw that it is still available on Amazon and you can order it here).

The dream:

So, years ago I dreamed a little dream that I would one day find this jacket.  And much to my extreme delight on this trip that dream became a reality.  It is not the coat but instead a small fitted jacket - with the same amazing Cassandre designed YSL logo in thick, gold metal embroidery.  And I am just as happy as if I had found the coat.  I am sure my eyes were as big as saucers when I was shown the jacket!

Now, don't get too excited because, alas, I am being the evil vintage store owner and I am keeping this piece for my personal collection : )  or is it : ( 

But I still dream another little dream that I will find the coat... and maybe, just maybe, it will find its way into RARE vintage... or my closet!  I am not making any promises...

"Finally at Twenty-Four, I Opened My Own House"

“Finally at the age of twenty-four I opened my own house.” Hubert de Givenchy 

 Un petit histoire de Monsieur Givenchy...

Jackie Kennedy leaving Givenchy's couture salon after a fitting.

Givenchy apprenticed with Jacques Fath, who amazingly showed up to work in a full length wolf coat, and Robert Piguet, who spent most of the day in his office with a light outside his office that either said “Wait!” or “Enter!”. From Piguet, Givenchy went to work for Lucien Lelong whose atelier numbered  1,500 employees.  At Lelong Givenchy had to go before a sort of tribunal where Lelong, his daughter and the directrice of the salon would pick and choose the designs they liked.

A model in Givenchy couture in the salon of Givenchy's Paris home.

Givenchy became Elsa Schiaparelli’s assistant in 1947. And it was here he said that he discovered “true elegance”.  Schiaparelli had just returned from the United States and reopened her salon in the Place Vendome.  In the storeroom were metres and metres of fabrics printed with surrealist motifs: silks with mouths, lips, stars and newsprint.  He asked what he was to do with these leftovers?  “Use it up.” was the reply and he was given free reign to do what he wanted.  Givenchy created for Schiaparelli his first separates: little blouses and skirts in Schiaparelli’s whimsical prints. It was also at Schiaparelli that Givenchy met some of the uber chic ladies who would later become his clients: Daisy Fellowes and Babe  Paley.

From Givenchy's first collection in 1952: a dress of smoke grey organza and a cape of cotton shirting.

“Fabric is where it all begins”

For Givenchy fabric was the be all and end all.  A collection began with the “feel of a velvet, the crackle of a duchesse satin, the sheen of a faille, the iridescence of a shot taffeta, the strength of a brocade.”  In his quest for the best, Givenchy worked with the  houses that produced the most exquisite fabrics in the world: Suzy Gandini, Madame Broissen de Méré, and Gustave Zumsteg.

 Minidress in Taroni's black tulle printed with white dots.  Worn with a lily of the valley boater.


"The Hepburn style had been born and it lives on today." Hubert de Givenchy

In 1954 Givenchy created the clothes for the Billy Wilder film Sabrina.  Sabrina was played by Audrey Hepburn.  Givenchy said "Her chic, her youth, her bearing and her silhouette grew ever more celebrated, enveloping me in a kind of of aura or radiance that I could never have hoped for."  

 

Audrey Hepburn in Givenchy at an awards ceremony.

Givenchy haute couture at RARE vintage 

I recently acquired a wonderful Givenchy couture gown for RARE vintage from the 1980s.  It is opulently representative of the luxe and dramatic 80s.  And it is ideally representative of Givenchy seeking the most beautiful fabrics, the most gorgeous embroidery. 

Silk taffeta striped Hubert de Givenchy haute couture gown.  Labeled, signed and numbered.  Gown is slightly bustled and gathered with a raised hemline in the front.

                                                                        PURCHASE

INQUIRY