Jackie Onassis’ Valentino wedding dress she wore when she married the Greek tycoon is going under the hammer, auction house Bonhams announced last week.
The sale, which is taking place online between Sept 16 to 26, has bestowed upon the garment an estimated starting price of $8,000 to $12,000.
For her wedding on the Greek island of Skorpios, Jackie championed a thoroughly Sixties mod look, Hello Magazine notes. She wore a knee-length, cream-beige dress by Italian fashion house Valentino, featuring a frosting of lavish lace, long bishop sleeves, a mock neckline and a pleated skirt. She sported her signature bouffant hairstyle, topped with sweet ribbon accents.
The dress is being proposed for sale by a private couple that befriended the former first lady and her second husband.
The same year as her nuptials, Jackie wore the cream-beige chiffon and lace dress to the wedding of Bunny Mellon’s daughter Eliza Lloyd and Viscount Moore.
Jackie O’s style had a lasting and profound impact on fashion, particularly in how it shaped the image of the modern American woman, Hello says.
As first lady, the New York-native redefined elegance with a sense of refinement that was both accessible and aspirational. Her signature looks, such as the pillbox hat, tailored suits, and sleeveless dresses, became synonymous with a new kind of sophisticated minimalism that women around the world admired and emulated, the magazine adds.
Kennedy met Onassis in 1963
Jackie first met Onassis during her 1963 fall vacation, when she was invited to spend time on Onassis’ yacht; the Christina by her younger sister, Lee Radziwill, who was herself allegedly intimately involved with Onassis.
After the death of her prematurely born son, Patrick, in the summer of 1963, Jackie became very depressed, and her sister thought a trip halfway around the world in Greece would do her good. Jackie was impressed that her sister was friends with one of the world’s wealthiest men.
Jackie had a great time in the Ionian Sea. Walking with Onassis along the water’s edge, it is said that she told him she wished her Greek island vacation would never end and that she did not like her life as First Lady.
Five years later, Jackie’s life was in shambles. After her husband’s assassination, she became severely depressed, and, after Bobby Kennedy’s killing, she became so scared for her life and the lives of her children that she almost became paranoid.
Jackie Kennedy’s children at the wedding with Onassis
“If they’re killing Kennedys, then my children are targets…I want to get out of this country,” she said. It was rumored that Jackie would never have married Onassis if Bobby were still alive.
Onassis offered Jackie and her children security. The Kennedy clan was very unhappy with this liaison and continued their campaign against the marriage. In the end, however, no one could stop Jackie. On October 20, 1968, she married Onassis in a small, private chapel on Skorpios.
“Jackie and Telis, her nickname for her hugely wealthy new husband, wore crowns of orange blossoms for the Greek Orthodox ceremony,” reported the New York Daily News. “She wore the ivory mini-skirted gown designed for her by Valentino of Rome.”
Aiding in the ceremony were Jackie’s children, Caroline, 10, and John Jr., 7. They carried the two six-foot-tall candles traditionally held by pages at a Greek Orthodox wedding.
Onassis’ children from his first marriage, Alexander, 20, and Christina, 18, watched from a corner of the tiny chapel. The four children saw Jackie Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis exchange golden rings as the marriage ritual was recited by 31-year-old Father Polykarpos Athanassiou of Athens, who was a close friend of Onassis.
