InStyle USA – August 2019

For more insider info and analysis from our fashion news director, follow him on Twitter @ericwilsonsays AUGUST 2019 InSTYLE  33

wool suit to complement the uniforms of

the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for a

visit to Canada, and he chose a shocking pink

raja coat when Kennedy was to meet Prime

Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, eliciting awe-

struck reactions in India, where she was

compared to Durga, the goddess of power.

“She was the perfect model for very simple

lines—a minimalist par excellence,” Cassini

wrote in his book A Thousand Days of Magic.

What really got me thinking about Cassini

recently, however, was not the pencil. In May,

Doyle began advertising an estate sale of

Cassini’s property from his two Manhattan

homes and his Oyster Bay mansion on Long Island, though

not with the blessing of his widow, Marianne Nestor Cassini,

to whom Cassini had been secretly married. Marianne and

her sister Peggy, who ran Cassini’s operations, have clashed

with the children and grandchildren of Cassini from his

marriage to Tierney. Marianne even spent six months in a

Nassau County jail for refusing to turn over financial state-

ments in one of the ongoing cases, making it impossible for

the heirs to accurately assess the value of his estate.

And so, amid this sorry state of affairs, I find myself

absorbed in a detailed examination of the detritus of his life,

as revealed in the Doyle auction catalogue and its 750 lots.

There are long notes from Kennedy, including a nine-page

letter valued at more than $10,000; sketches, of course; and

photographs of the designer with President John F. Kennedy.

There are French paintings of battle scenes, leather chester-

field sofas, toy soldiers, plates shaped like lettuce leaves,

an umbrella stand that looks like a boot, silver tea sets, and

piles of Native American jewelry that Cassini loved to col-

lect. There are more-personal things as well, including his

boots—25 pairs of them in three lots that are each expected

to fetch just a few hundred dollars.

It’s a sad ending to an important legacy, but there is one

highlight of the sale: It turns out that Cassini kept vast stores

of glass objects from his collections, including candlesticks

and plenty of whimsical paperweights, presumably to give as

gifts to anyone he thought he might inspire. n

Cassini

claimed Grace

Kelly left him

for Prince

Rainier because

she’d rather be a

princess than a

countess.

The large

buttons

that became

a Kennedy

signature

were inspired

by a Cossack

uniform.

The silk suit the first lady

wore to a state luncheon

with President Charles

de Gaulle of France and

his wife, Yvonne, was

a classic example of the

Kennedy look.

Grace Kelly, shot

for Life magazine in

her 1955 Oscar

gown designed by

Edith Head

Her Mountie
red suit was
a major hit
in Canada.

Cassini

at the

sketch

pad