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.
“You know, it was a little bit of a risk to wear something so bold and bright at that time. Women that were expecting were often told to downplay themselves instead of drawing attention to themselves,” Everett says. He points to the Life Magazine they hung on the wall, where Jackie beams alongside her husband. “But I think she sees the moment. I don’t think she’s ever looked happier than she does now.” Indeed, the first lady looks like she’s doing a Duchenne smile—the most genuine form of positive expression. It’s a far cry from both the hyper polish or grieving stoicism explored in Andy Warhol’s “Nine Jackies.”
In a way, it’s both a literal and metaphorical fitting moment for an archival piece that belonged to the first lady. Kennedy, a longtime member of The Whitney Museum’s board, was instrumental in securing the land and architect for the contemporary museum’s uptown building. When The Breuer opened for the first time in 1966, she attended the ribbon cutting ceremony alongside Marcel Breuer himself.
The coat is estimated at $6,000. However, fashion pieces have been selling for higher—like, much higher—than expected: Princess Diana’s black sheep sweater went for $1.1 million, 14 times higher than its original estimate of $80,000. “There’s explosive interest and growth,” Josh Pullan, Sotheby’s global head of luxury, tells Vanity Fair of the auction market for fashion pieces.
