Jackie Kennedy’s Historical Election Night Coat Is Up For Auction
First, it was Princess Diana’s black sheep sweater. Next, it was Jane Birkin’s own Birkin. Now, Sotheby’s is auctioning off another piece of fashion history: the purple dress coat Jackie Kennedy wore on JFK’s election night. A photograph from the historic moment appeared on the November 21, 1960 cover of Life Magazine. The headline? “The Victorious Young Kennedys.”“This coat was cherished by our mother, but with our mother’s passing, we feel it’s the right time to entrust the coat to someone who will appreciate and preserve it as our mother had, helping safeguard Jackie’s legacy,” the coat’s anonymous donor tells Vanity Fair.“Provenance is everything with fashion,” Frank Everett, a Sotheby’s vice chairman tells me. We’re standing on the fifth floor of The Breuer building, the landmark Brutalist structure on Madison Avenue that once housed The Whitney Museum of Art. Just a month ago, the 281-year-old auction house moved their headquarters there after purchasing the building for $100 million. Before us? the coat, enclosed in a plexiglass display case.It’s violet and double breasted and falls to the mannequin’s knees. It looks oversized and roomy because, well, it is: Kennedy was eight months pregnant with her son, John F. Kennedy Jr. when she wore the garment on her husband’s election night.Jackie Kennedy's coat at Sotheby's. The 1960 piece of clothing will go up for auction next week.Courtesy of Sotheby's
