Oleg Cassini, RIP
I was really shocked to note that Mr. Cassini's death went virtually unnoticed by fashion bloggers such as Manolo and the lovely Dress A Day.Of course, his obituary was buried below the fold on an internal page in a secondary section in the Herald, not even featured in the celebrity obits.
But, people. Oleg Cassini? He invented Jackie O's style. The
That, people is Style, with a capitol (pun intended) S.
Do you remember the 1974 Matador? Do you even remembe the Matador? It was an incredibly fashion-forward auto design. I don't know of anyone who actually had one, but it was sleek, and racy, and just so so so ahead of its time. Oleg Cassini did a designer edition of that car.
Here's more about the Matador.
Earlier this year, a couple of retrospective books came out about Cassini and the Kennedy years. Every fashion junkie should own them.
There. I feel better now.
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Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/21 at 10:56 AM in That’s Entertainment
He totally dated Grace Kelly, too, and I understand she totally wanted to marry him, but her father said nope. He had a thing against “swarthy”—that is, of course, unless “swarthy” came with a royal title and a sweet little European kingdom.
Why do I know these things?
Matadors were big out here in So Cal! Glad someone made note of the man’s legacy!
Actually, his death didn’t go unnoticed in our paper (the Santa Cruz Sentinel), but then we newspaper editors on the West Coast have the luxury of time on our side. The obit hit the wires around 10 p.m. PST (1 in the morning back on your end of the nation, for those of you keeping score at home), and it was a pleasure to have a young 20-something editor fresh out of college redo the Obituaries page to include it (“I’ve never heard of Oleg Cassini” “He’s never heard of you, either—just redo the page.”)