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Oleg Cassini; LA Times obituary

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Hyfler/Rosner

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Mar 18, 2006, 11:47:49 AM3/18/06
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Los Angeles Times
March 18, 2006 Saturday
BYLINE: Barbara Thomas


Oleg Cassini, the son of Russian aristocrats who became a
savvy influence in the world of fashion and helped define
the style of Jacqueline Kennedy, has died.

Cassini died of still undisclosed causes at 92 on Long
Island.

As famous for his colorful lifestyle as he was for his
clothes, Cassini was married to Hollywood star Gene Tierney
and engaged to Grace Kelly -- before she became a princess.
As "secretary of style" to the most stylish first lady,
Jacqueline Kennedy, Cassini foreshadowed a time when
designers would be defined by their celebrity clients.

As a businessman, Cassini was an innovative leader in the
fashion industry. He was the first to understand the power
of franchising his name, with as many as 50 licenses,
including sunglasses, watches and children's clothes. (At
one time, Cassini estimated an annual worldwide retail
volume of $400 million.)

He bucked fashion tradition by refusing to show with other
designers during the New York seasons, instead taking his
designs directly to the public, exhibiting his collections
in stores across the country and becoming a regular
television guest on "The Tonight Show" and "The Mike Douglas
Show."

He understood there was wealth to be had in ready-to-wear
instead of high fashion. He was the first to introduce
brightly colored shirts for men and was responsible for the
short-lived trend of the Nehru jacket. He popularized the
pillbox hat as an accommodation to Kennedy's newly acquired
bouffant hairdo.

In spite of all this, he struggled for many years to prove
he was not just a playboy dilettante but indeed a serious
fashion player.

Ironically, by dressing the first lady, the immigrant
galvanized an American fashion sensibility. As the world
took its cues from European designers, Cassini offered an
elegant new way to be classically American. He took
conservative staples, such as the shirt dress, the simple
shift and the wool coat, and made them into new American
classics. And he made them sexy. The woman wore the clothes,
the clothes did not wear the woman.

But Cassini's reputation as bon vivant and man about town
overshadowed his credibility as a serious designer. This was
unfortunate, because he never got much credit among the
fashion industry, said Edie Locke, president of the Los
Angeles branch of the Fashion Assn. "One thought 'celebrity'
before taking him very seriously as a designer, which
probably was not justified. It wasn't the way that you think
of a Calvin [Klein] or a Donna [Karan]," said Locke, who was
editor in chief of Mademoiselle magazine through the 1970s.

Cassini seemed destined to lead a fast life, from his
beginnings as the son of the Countess Marguerite Cassini,
daughter of a Russian ambassador to the United States, and
Alexander Loiewski, a Russian diplomat. In 1917 when the
Czarist government was overthrown, the family fled, first to
Denmark and then to Florence, Italy, where they settled and
Marguerite opened a dress shop.

Cassini studied art and opened a tiny salon, getting orders
from the European aristocracy and American debutantes, whom
he did his best to introduce to the ways of romance, as he
tactfully noted in his 1987 autobiography, "In My Own
Fashion."

He came to New York in 1936 and was soon joined by his
brother Igor, who went on to fashion a career as the Hearst
newspaper gossip columnist Cholly Knickerbocker. The
brothers found joblessness and near poverty but, armed with
good tuxedos and European manners, they eventually made
their way into East Coast society.

Cassini was briefly and disastrously married to cough syrup
heiress Merry Fahrney, becoming the fourth of her nine
ex-husbands.

After the divorce and scandalous routing by gossip
columnists ("the naughty count" and "international
itinerant"), Cassini moved to Hollywood in 1940, where he
worked at first in the costume department of Paramount
Studios and later Twentieth Century Fox.

He designed costumes for Veronica Lake, Marilyn Monroe and
Gene Tierney, whom he married in 1941. The couple enjoyed
life in Hollywood circles. He gave up his title as a count
to become a U.S. citizen and enlisted in the U.S. Army
during World War II, serving stateside.

But the Hollywood high life would end with the birth of the
Cassinis' first child, Daria. When Tierney was pregnant, she
was exposed to rubella by an overzealous fan. Daria was born
blind and severely retarded, a devastating blow to the
couple. Cassini later wrote that he had fantasies about
killing himself and his daughter. Tierney plummeted into a
deep depression, which she battled for the rest of her life.
She divorced Cassini in 1947, but they reconciled and had a
second daughter, Christina. The couple divorced a second
time in 1952. Still, even after she remarried, they remained
friends until the actress' death from emphysema in 1991.

Cassini never remarried, but his name was linked to a number
of beautiful women, including Anita Ekberg, Linda Evans,
Jill St. John and dozens of models.

Perhaps the most famous name of all was actress Grace Kelly,
to whom he was unofficially engaged for two years. Her
family opposed the courtship because he was divorced. Kelly
unceremoniously announced to Cassini that their relationship
was over because she was going to marry Prince Rainier of
Monaco.

In spite of the heady social life, Cassini was determined to
become a successful fashion designer. Ignoring Tierney's
protests, he returned to New York in 1950 to open his own
fashion house. But it wasn't until a newly elected John F.
Kennedy asked him to be the official designer for his wife
that he achieved his greatest success. Kennedy's father,
Joseph, picked up the tab for the nearly 300 outfits
designed for the first lady in her 1,000 days of office.

A series of letters between the designer and first lady were
chronicled in his 1995 book "Oleg Cassini: A Thousand Days
of Magic."

Cassini's days as a movie costume designer proved valuable
as he and the first lady agreed she should dress for the
role and not for herself. The letters show the details both
of them paid attention to: She should wear a cloth coat to
the inauguration so as not to look as matronly as previous
first ladies. She should show cleavage, but not too much.

Years later, fashion runways still pay homage to the simple
coats, A-line dresses and pillbox hats favored by Jacqueline
Kennedy.

After President Kennedy's assassination, Cassini and the
first lady parted ways, but the designer's name was
imprinted in the American consciousness. He had, by then,
also become a full-fledged member of what brother Igor had
named "the jet set."

Cassini continued to live and love well, but like many aging
playboys, he saw the errors of his ways, not in romancing,
but in promoting the use of fur. He blamed himself for the
death of 250,000 leopards that were killed as women flocked
to copy a coat he had designed for Mrs. Kennedy. "After that
I said, 'I will do my best to redeem myself,' " he told The
Times.

"St. Francis of Assisi has always been an inspiration to
me," Cassini had said. "He was a playboy, too."

Cassini became an animal activist, earning wide praise from
animal rights groups. His last great project was introducing
micro-fiber fake furs in 1999.

Cassini lived in Gramercy Park in New York City with a
menagerie of animals. He is survived by his daughters and
grandchildren. His brother, Igor, died in 2002.


Hyfler/Rosner

unread,
Mar 18, 2006, 5:17:47 PM3/18/06
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> Los Angeles Times
> March 18, 2006 Saturday
> BYLINE: Barbara Thomas
>
>
> Oleg Cassini, the son of Russian aristocrats who became a
> savvy influence in the world of fashion and helped define
> the style of Jacqueline Kennedy, has died.


This was a great obit.


danny burstein

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Mar 18, 2006, 6:07:04 PM3/18/06
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And he made it long enough to see his namesake,
the Cassini orbiter, send back those great
photos of Saturn and Titan (and lots of other
stuff in the vicinity)
.

--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

marilyn...@aol.com

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Mar 18, 2006, 6:57:51 PM3/18/06
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I agree this is a great obit, except it was missing something -- the
one great sentence from the AP:

''All I remember about those days are nerves, and Jackie on the phone:
'Hurry, hurry, Oleg, I've got nothing to wear,''' he wrote.

Fortunately preserved it in the dead pool update...

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