Jackie's ensemble that day -- which she completed with a sable circlet and muff -- has become one of the most celebrated of presidential inauguration looks. But there's one thing we may have all been getting wrong: the color.
While most Americans will remember the first lady in duck-egg blue, complementing JFK's steel blue waistcoat and tie, color film footage from "Halston," a CNN Films documentary about the legendary designer, shows her inauguration outfit appearing pinkish. And researchers at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, where the outfit is stored, told CNN that the dress and hat were basically colorless -- a neutral, fawnish beige and not even slightly blue.
Remember when Ginger Spice wore the Union Jack?
The origin of the mistake seems to be a color photograph from Life Magazine. But the cover of the same issue featured a very different photograph: Jackie in far less vivid tones, closer to the off-white captured by the handful of other press photographers present (early color film often struggled to match real hues).
So when, in 2017, Melania Trump wore a powder blue Ralph Lauren inauguration suit likened to Kennedy's, was it a tribute to an outfit that never existed?
All the times I have seen Jackie's outfit, it has been beige. However, the article explains sometimes it has been published in blue or even pinkish. Colorization, I suppose.
Jackie Kennedy wore Tiffany blue at JFK inauguration.
"Jackie Kennedy's pillbox hat at the 1961 presidential inauguration - CNN Style" https://www.cnn.com/style/article/jackie-kennedy-inauguration-pillbox-hat-remember-when/index.html
All the times I have seen Jackie's outfit, it has been beige. However, the article explains sometimes it has been published in blue or even pinkish. Colorization, I suppose.