United States First Ladies

"The Jackie Look, or what I call the A-line look, created a worldwide impression of such dimension that she became the First Lady of the world. There wasn’t one lady on the planet who didn’t want to dress like her, comb their hair like her, walk and talk like her. And it was the first time an American designer could influence world trends."

"During the Onassis years, a jet-set glamour crept in as she shielded herself from the paparazzi gaze behind her trademark bug-eyed sunglasses. That glamor was well-served by her friend Valentino’s sleek day clothes and romantic evening looks. As an esteemed literary editor in the seventies, she dressed the part in a working-woman wardrobe that was practical yet faultlessly stylish."

"Our Jackie is embodied forever in that bloodstained pink suit. She bore the grief of a nation with such dignity, and then guarded her privacy until she died in 1994 at age 64. This Jackie is harshly judgmental, dispensing petty opinions that say as much about her as they do the objects of her disdain."

"She even apologized to JFK before he became president and told him, “I’m sorry for you that I’m such a dud.” But when her husband asked her to stop wearing head scarfs because she looked too much like a celebrity, she stood her ground. She refused to change her style and soon millions of American women were copying her. It remains to be seen with our current first lady whether her willful approach will help her or hurt her."

"Jackie has been perceived as a sphynx who very definitely possessed a secret. Around this faux blue-blooded beauty spiralled a web of myth and rumour; fantasies she did not deign to respond to that thus took root as fact."

"Before her marriage, she worked as a photojournalist for the Washington Times-Herald, interviewing the likes of Richard Nixon and reporting on the coronation of Elizabeth II. In later life, she took jobs at Viking Press and Doubleday, where she helped edit Michael Jackson’s 1988 autobiography, Moonwalk. But her greatest achievement came in those days after Dallas, when the queen of the White House abruptly made herself over as its architect and myth-maker, the equivalent of Guinevere sitting down to write Le Morte d’Arthur."

"She had a very acute sense of her image as first lady and how she wanted to use her image to promote her husband's administration and his ideals."

"I want you to know something else, too, that I’m grateful for. In January of 1992 Jackie came to a fundraiser for me when I was running fifth in New Hampshire, and reached out to my wife and to my daughter in ways that I will never forget. One month after, her son had also come to an event for me, when I think I was running sixth in New Hampshire."

"She was first lady in a time — which has not quite ended — when many Americans were put off if a president’s wife seemed too involved in his political career. In almost every presidential marriage you will find a first lady who, while she serves, insists that all politics is left to the president — but when viewed in history, she turns out to have been a significant influence on that presidency. Jackie is no exception."

"Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, the glamorous wife who was beside John F. Kennedy during his presidency and when he was shot, was for 33 years the most famous woman on Earth."

"She lived through and reflected a crucial period in U.S. history in which women moved into the mainstream of American professional life and redefined their roles."

"People who tried to say no to Jackie found that she would go to great lengths to outwit them."

"Kennedy of course is best known for her chic fashion sense, something I'm sure Melania Trump admires, but she was more plugged into her husband's administration than she's given credit for: She knew about his plan to get rid of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and she was a sounding board for him during the Cuban missile crisis."

"Recently, while channel-surfing late one night, I stumbled upon the 1964 comedy "Kisses for My President" in which a hapless Fred MacMurray struggles to cope with being married to the first female president, played by Polly Bergen. Things run amok until Bergen's character gets pregnant and decides to resign the presidency so that she can take care of their family. This ending, absurd to 21st-century audiences, would have made sense to Jackie Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt because to them, the concept of a female president was absurd in and of itself. The idea of a first gentleman would have been preposterous."

"On duty as First Lady, Mrs. Kennedy’s impact was profound—a visual metaphor for the President’s youthful, internationally minded administration, and a symbol of a new era of cultural sophistication at the White House. For her formal daytime ensembles, she took a leaf from Britain’s royal dressmakers and their clients, avoiding prints and instead using brilliant solid colors and bold lines that helped her to be easily distinguished in a crowd. Her majestic, strong-silhouetted evening gowns, meanwhile, showcased her statuesque figure and married French grandeur to a thoroughly American breeziness."

"Throughout, her disciplined elegance revealed an equestrian’s fastidious approach to dressing. Off duty, meanwhile, Jacqueline Kennedy was every inch the liberated sixties woman, barefoot in capri pants and sportif tops that were always chosen with an eye to simplicity of line."

"For what would prove to be one of her last public appearances, for the American Ballet Theatre gala at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1993, Jacqueline Kennedy wore a dress by Herrera of white crepe with rhinestone buttons. During the fitting, Mrs. Kennedy Onassis subtly altered the placement of those buttons from the original runway model, streamlining the effect and proving her enduring taste for perfectionism in all things."

"Jackie Kennedy grabbed the public’s attention with her chic, yet simple fashion sense. From boxy Chanel suits to Halston pillbox hats, she reshaped fashion’s view of conservative clothes and left a noteworthy fashion legacy behind."

"Kennedy was the epitome of 1960s haute couture. Her style was aspirational, unattainable. Obama is more of a fashion populist. It's hard to imagine Kennedy, in her pillbox hat and leopard-skin coat, dishing about shopping at J.Crew."

"It was in those brief, heady years or perhaps it was really just one year, during the campaign and election of 1960—when John F. Kennedy and his young, beautiful wife were fast becoming national and then international celebrities that the legend of Jackie was born."

"But whatever the reasons behind her appeal, and however concrete or ineffable they might be, the fact remains that for millions of women around the globe, across generations, the woman in the White House in the Oleg Cassini outfits (made expressly for her), throwing formal dinner parties for artists, writers, scientists and diplomats, traveling the world, was the face not only of a new era but of an utterly new type of American woman. She was, somehow, at once warm and elegant, youthful and sophisticated, fun-loving and serious—and on top of it all, self-deprecatingly funny."

"Throughout her life, despite the many tragedies she endured (loosing a husband and a baby boy) her poise and style endured. We adore you Jackie O., you are a role model in every sense!"

"Her iconic status really came after President Kennedy's death when she withdrew from public life and was rarely heard from publicly. The Jacqueline Kennedy on these tapes fits, I think, with what we might have expected if we think of her from the vantage point of her White House years."

"These comments, which sound so antiquated to modern ears, reflect, obviously, Mrs. Kennedy's perspective at this moment in her life. Undoubtedly they were derived in part from her background, her class, her sensibility. But they also capture views that were shared by many in her generation."

"I think it would be very cynical — and completely wrong — to see her remarks on these tapes as calculated myth making. There is an off the cuff quality to these conversations, a rambling, even at times disjointed mood that shows Kennedy in a reflective mood. Much of what we hear is quite unvarnished. The conversations range over several days and many hours. The sound bites that have gotten the most media attention were stripped of their context and when that is provided, as it is in the tapes, one gets a sense of a person who intensely enjoyed some of her experience in the White House and was overwhelmed by and even abhorred some of what she saw. She does not, it is true, share with Schlesinger any doubts about or criticism of her husband. That isn't surprising."

"Mrs. Kennedy's dignity in the face of that tragedy moved millions of people and will make her, I suspect, someone who many will always admire. It is, in the end, better to see our presidents — and everyone else around us — as human beings than to engage in an idealization that really diminishes our own agency and sense of responsibility."

"It was not the same relationship or friendship that I had with Audrey (Hepburn). The American people felt emotion for Jackie, but they preferred to have an American couturier design her dresses when they came to France for a state visit."

"It’s certainly not the Jackie that we knew later on. By then, she’s a different woman."

"Undeniably one of the greatest style icons of the last century, Jackie's elegance and class were an inspiration to millions."

"Not only was Jackie deeply loved and adored, but she set the bar for First Lady fashion. Decades after her time in office, we still reflect on her timeless look and countless articles have been dedicated to copying her style."

"Although Jackie had a timeless style she injected a panache and flair into her outfits that gave them her unique stamp. Her staples however, and the accessories we remember her for, are her oversize sunglasses, strands of pearls and silk scarves."

"Starting with that powder-blue inauguration ensemble, plenty of first-lady watchers have noticed that Melania Trump’s fashion choices have seemed one pillbox hat away from copying Jackie Kennedy, perhaps the biggest style icon to occupy the White House."

"At age 31, she brought a sense of youth and fashion to Washington, making the pillbox hat the rage and redecorating a stodgy White House. Yet the image that remains seared in the national consciousness is of the First Lady cradling her fallen husband’s head in her lap, her pink suit splattered with his blood."

"Like no other First Lady before her, Onassis cut a mod figure, with Oleg Cassini outfits, Givenchy gowns and the pillbox hats that topped her bouffant hairdo."

"Of all the first ladies we’ve had, Jackie Kennedy stands out. She changed the role. She was elegant and sophisticated. She took an intense interest in the historical furnishings of the White House. She brought in paintings and furniture that represented the past. She brought entertainers that had not been there before."

"Michael Beschloss, who has steered this frail craft of last-sip publishing into harbor, may have overstepped himself as a historian by saying that the tapes show Jackie as a major player in the Kennedy administration. But they certainly make it difficult if not impossible to accept her at her own paradoxical valuation, as merely a self-effacing hostess and decorator."

"For some people, the 1996 public auction of Mrs. Kennedy’s private effects, down to the most trivial and tangential (such as her Hermès hairbrush), was when the wrong scent began somehow to cling to the business. For others, it was Caroline Kennedy’s release in 2001 of a volume fragrantly titled The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, which one hopes would not have seduced the incautious purchaser into supposing that the First Lady had ever extended herself into verse."

"I draw so much inspiration from her. How she influenced style, how she influenced bringing so much to the White House when she was there. So many artists were supported by her and definitely with everything she went through, she was so focused on keeping her children safe, protected and loved and really fulfilling their own dreams and she had such an elegance."

"I looked at her. Mrs. Kennedy’s dress was stained with blood. One leg was almost entirely covered with it and her right glove was caked, it was caked with blood — her husband’s blood. Somehow that was one of the most poignant sights — that immaculate woman exquisitely dressed, and caked in blood."

"Today, November 22, 2016, marks the 53rd anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. His legacy of American exceptionalism lives on, much in part due to the words of his widow, Jacqueline Kennedy, who made it her mission to keep her husband’s memory stamped firmly in the minds of Americans and global citizens for years to come."

"She knew what must be done to keep John F. Kennedy’s memory alive. She must glorify his work, and so she did. But, what she didn’t realize was that her own great legacy was one to be remembered too."

"Jackie's interest in the public opinion and legacy building of the Kennedy Administration didn’t begin only after JFK’s assassination; she was actually a champion public diplomat during her time as first lady, using global public opinion in her favor as she won the hearts of people everywhere. She frequently traveled around the world meeting with various government officials and members of the female press corps professing the image of American idealism. This successful use of soft power set a dynamic for future first ladies to come."

"She made a rare and noble contribution to the American spirit. But for us, most of all she was a magnificent wife, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend. She graced our history. And for those of us who knew and loved her, she graced our lives."

"She said she's crazy about Ted, but she's known for years that I should have done it fifteen years ago. She was so supportive. She even suggested I use her New York lawyer. If Jackie recommends him and says he's distinguished, he must be good."

"Jackie also told me that she wishes she had given me this advice before and maybe I wouldn't have gotten so sick. But back then, fifteen years ago, I probably wouldn't have been able to take her advice."

"I do not think it altogether inappropriate to introduce myself to this audience. I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it."

"She was present at a scene of martyrdom and an intimate witness, vulnerable to that moment, escaping death herself. It sealed her fate as part of a tragic, fascinating spectacle that played in millions of minds."

"The worst thing in her life that could possibly happen, happened. And it happened in broad daylight in front of everyone. It was always happening in front of everyone, a ghastly carnival replay of the worst thing that can happen."

"As she had done so many times in the decades since Dallas, she again grappled with the randomness of the world and the abruptness of tragedy."

"Admittedly, Melania Trump looked stunning this morning as she walked into St. John’s Church, wearing a head-to-toe baby blue outfit designed by the reigning king of American sportswear, Ralph Lauren. The knee-length dress, high-necked bolero jacket, matching gloves and stiletto pumps all convey a message of class and elegance, drawing immediate – and likely intentional – comparisons to Jackie O., who wore the same color Oleg Cassini suit fifty-six years ago today: January 20, 1961, the day her husband John F. Kennedy was inaugurated."