WASHINGTON, March 18: Internationally-acclaimed fashion designer Oleg Cassini, who gained fame and fortune making clothes for Jacqueline Kennedy as well as the Hollywood elite, died at the age of 92 on Friday.
The Paris-born designer gained fame for dressing such Hollywood celebrities as Natalie Wood, Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe and Gene Tierney, who later became his wife.
In 1960, then-first lady Jacqueline Kennedy appointed him her official designer.
He made more than 100 dresses in the first year of the Kennedy administration and 300 more thereafter, helping the first lady to gain recognition as one of the best-dressed women in Washington.
He worked closely with her on her personal clothing style, complementing her dresses and outer wear with matching hats, furs, gloves, shoes, and handbags.
“I had not merely selected from my current collection, I had created a concept for her,” the designer would later recall. “I talked to her like a movie star, and told her that she needed a story, a scenario as First Lady.” He said he had told Jacqueline Kennedy that he wanted her to set fashion trends rather than follow them.
Cassini was born Oleg Loiewski in 1913 to a family of Russian noblemen.
His grandfather was Count Arthur Cassini, who represented the Russian Empire as its ambassador to the US during the William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt administrations.—AFP
