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Columbia Encyclopedia: Cassini, Oleg,
1913–2006, American fashion designer, b. Paris as Oleg Cassini Loiewski. Raised in Italy, he came to the United States in 1936, and in the 1940s designed costumes for Twentieth-Century Fox and other Hollywood studios. After returning to New York, he created elegant ready-to-wear dresses, while continuing to design for television and Broadway musicals. In the 1960s he became the official designer to Jacqueline Kennedy, the wife of President Kennedy, creating the “Camelot” look that became synonymous with well-crafted style. He was known for such looks as the sheath, the A-line dress, and the pill-box hat and, for men, the turtleneck, brightly colored shirts, and the Nehru jacket. A pioneer in franchising, he lent his name to some 50 fashion-related lines.

Bibliography

See his autobiography, In My Own Fashion (1987).

 
 
Dictionary: Cas·si·ni  (kə-sē') pronunciation, Oleg Born 1913.

French-born American fashion designer. He established his own ready-to-wear lines in the 1950s and became official designer to Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961.


 
(American designer)
  • Born: Oleg Loiewski in Paris of Russian parents, 11 April 1913. Raised in Florence; adopted mother's family name, Cassini, 1937. Immigrated to the U.S., 1936, naturalized, 1942.
  • Education: Attended English Catholic School, Florence; studied at Accademia delle Belle Arti, Florence, 1931-34; political science, University of Florence, 1932-34.
  • Military Service: Served five years with U.S. Army Cavalry during World War II.
  • Family: Married Merry Fahrney, 1938 (divorced); married actress Gene Tierney, 1941 (divorced, 1952); daughters: Daria, Christina.
  • Career: After working in his mother's Maison de Couture in Florence, opened his own Maison de Couture, Rome; sketch artist, Patou, Paris, 1935; design assistant to couturier Jo Copeland, New York, 1936; designer, William Bass, 1937, and James Rotherberg Inc., New York, 1938-39; New York salon, Oleg Inc., established, 1937-39; owner of Cassini fashion studio, New York, 1939-40; designer, Paramount Pictures, Los Angeles, 1939-42; designer under contract with Twentieth Century Fox, Los Angeles, 1940; owner, Cassini Dardick fashion firm, New York, 1947-50: established Oleg Cassini Inc., New York, 1950; appointed official designer to U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, early 1960s; established ready-to-wear business, Milan, 1963; returned to New York, designed tennis clothes for Munsingwear and swimwear for Waterclothes under own label, 1974; introduced new fragrance line, Cassini, 1990; inked deal with Cascade International to develop specialty stores, 1991; launched fake fur collection, 1999.
  • Exhibitions:Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years (featuring many of Cassini's designs), 2001.
  • Awards: Numerous awards, including five first prizes, Mostra della Moda, Turin, 1934; Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, International College of Fine Arts, Miami, 1989; American Society of Perfumers Living Legend award, 2001.
  • Died: 17 March, 2006

Oleg Cassini has had an extremely varied, glamorous, and exotic career but is perhaps best known for the personal style and clothing he developed when official designer for First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961. He worked closely with Mrs. Kennedy, a personal friend, and together they created many widely copied garments that became American fashion classics and firmly established Kennedy as a style leader.

The First Lady frequently wore a fawn wool two-piece outfit, a dress and a waist-length semifitted jacket or coat with a removable round neck collar of Russian sable, often topped by the famous pillbox hats created by Halston. Another popular outfit was a high-necked silk ottoman empire-line evening gown that gently flared in an A-line to the floor. Jacqueline Kennedy's vast public exposure proved a huge boost for Cassini's profile and brought worldwide attention to American fashion in general.

Cassini was born a count and was brought up by Italian/Russian parents in Florence, where his mother ran an exclusive dress shop. He began his career in 1934 by making small one-off designs sold through his mother's shop. He moved to New York in 1936 and worked for several Seventh Avenue manufacturers before joining Twentieth-Century Fox in Hollywood as a costume designer in 1940. He worked for several major film studios and created glamorous clothes for many film stars—eventually marrying one, Gene Tierney— against studio wishes.

In 1950 the designer opened Oleg Cassini Inc., his ready-to-wear dress firm in New York, with $100,000-worth of backing. Femininity quickly became the keyword in describing his work; he produced dresses made from soft, romantic fabrics like lace, taffeta, and chiffon. He popularized ladylike fashion innovations, such as the A-line, the smart little white-collared dress, the sheath, the knitted suit, and dresses with minute waistlines. Military details such as brass buttons and braid were also popular features. In the 1960s the Cassini look evolved to incorporate ease and simplicity. The straight, lined cocktail and evening dresses popularized by Jackie Kennedy were customer favorites, as were his plain, boxy jacket suits.

Retiring from his ready-to-wear and couture business in 1963, Cassini's next venture was a ready-to-wear business in partnership with his brother Igor. He presented a menswear collection for the first time, breaking tradition by introducing color to shirts that had always been white, and teaming them with traditional three-piece suits.

An author of several books, beginning with his autobiography In My Own Fashion back in 1987, Cassini published One Thousand Days of Magic in 1995 about his experiences dressing Jackie Kennedy during her White House years. The 217-page book sold well and Cassini toured the country making appearances in its behalf. Yet he was still equally active in fashion; in 1997 Cassini and an investment group prepared to acquire He-Ro Group Ltd., producer of the designer's Black Tie eveningwear collections. The new company was to be renamed Oleg Cassini Group International, but the deal fell through after the sudden death of a He-Ro chairman, William J. Carone. He-Ro was then bought and merged with Nah Nah Collections to form the Nahdree Group, and subsequently cut ties with Cassini.

The veteran designer bounced back in 1999 with a fake-fur collection, launched at a fundraiser for the Humane Society of America. Working with Monterey Fashions to produce the 100-piece faux fur line, Cassini commented to Women's Wear Daily in November 1999, "You won't be able to distinguish between the real and man-made."

At the turn of the century, Cassini was entering his 90s and still a man about town. He ran an extensive empire, exporting to over 20 countries through an ever expanding number of licensing agreements. The company produced womenwear, menswear, children's clothing, and innumerable accessories including ties, luggage, cosmetics, shoes, umbrellas, and fragrances.

In 2001, six years after the publication of Cassini's One Thousand Days of Magic and 40 years after he began designing for Jackie Kennedy, the Metropolitan Museum of Art mounted an exhibition called "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years." The exhibit featured many of the designer's famed creations for the First Lady, and brought the Cassini name to the forefront of the industry once more.

Publications

By Cassini:

    Books
  • Pay the Price, New York, 1983.
  • In My Own Fashion, New York, 1987, 1990.
  • One Thousand Days of Magic, New York, 1995.

On Cassini:

    Books
  • Bender, Marylin, The Beautiful People, New York, 1967.
  • Milbank, Caroline Rennolds, New York Fashion: The Evolution of American Style, New York, 1989.
  • Leese, Elizabeth, Costume Design in the Movies, New York, 1991.
    Articles
  • "Oleg Cassini," in Current Biography, July 1961.
  • "Oleg Cassini, un couturier collectionneur de femmes," in Elle (Paris), 25 October 1987.
  • Tedeschi, Mark, "Cassini's Career—Straight Out of a Hemingway Novel," in Footwear News, 17 December 1990.
  • Buck, Geneviéve, "You're Not Excused if You Sniff at the Idea of Mixing Fragrances and Fashion," in the Chicago Tribune, 19 December 1990.
  • "Cassini to Design for Cascade," in the South Florida Business Journal, 17 June 1991.
  • "Oleg Cassini Comes to Town," in Clothes Show (London), December 1991.
  • "The Charm of First Lady's Man Oleg Cassini Shines On," in Vogue (London), December 1991.
  • Witchell, Alex, "A Lifetime's Pursuit of Glamour, Grandeur and Women's Trust," in the New York Times, 16 November 1995.
  • "Oleg Cassini Bailout Plan Falls Through," in Women's Wear Daily, 22 July 1997.
  • Maxwell, Alison, "Oleg Cassini Launches Fake-Fur Line," in Women's Wear Daily, 9 November 1999.
  • Horyn, Cathy, "Fashion's Gadfly Tangos With A Legend," in theNew York Times, 15 April 2001.

— KevinAlmond; updated by NellyRhodes

 
Wikipedia: Oleg Cassini
Oleg Cassini
Cassini1.jpg
Born April 11, 1913
Flag of France Paris, France
Died March 17, 2006
Flag of the United States Manhasset, New York, USA
Spouse(s) Mary "Merry" Fahrney (1938-1940)
Gene Tierney (1941-1953)
Children Antonia "Daria Cassini
Christina "Tina" Cassini

Oleg Cassini (April 11, 1913March 17, 2006) was an American fashion designer noted for being chosen by Jacqueline Kennedy to design her state wardrobe in the 1960s. His clothing designs also appeared in numerous Hollywood films starring his second wife, the actress Gene Tierney.

Early life

Born in Paris as Oleg Cassini Loiewski, the elder son of Countess Marguerite Cassini and her husband, Alexander Loiewski, he was raised in Italy and moved to the United States in 1936. His father was a Russian diplomat, and his maternal grandfather, Arthur Paul Nicholas Cassini, Marquis de Capuzzuchi di Bologna, Count Cassini, was the Russian ambassador to the United States during the administrations of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.

His father later adopted his wife's surname, which they deemed more distinguished, and when the family lost its status and fortune in the wake of the Russian Revolution, the Cassinis moved to Italy, where Marguerite Cassini went to work as a fashion designer.

Cassini took American citizenship and became a second lieutenant in the Army during World War II, at Fort Riley, Kansas. Initially, he joined the United States Coast Guard but according to his The New York Times obituary, he later served in the U.S. Army as a cavalry officer because he found the idea of cavalry service a bit more glamorous.

His brother, Igor Cassini, became a famous gossip columnist known as "Cholly Knickerbocker".

Career

Cassini studied art under Giorgio de Chirico and eventually gravitated to his mother's career, fashion, when he took a job sketching for the French couturier Jean Patou. In the late 1930s, he worked as an assistant to the costume designer Edith Head and in the early 1940s was hired by Paramount Pictures.

Among the films Cassini costumed was The Shanghai Gesture, a 1941 film by Josef Von Sternberg, which starred Cassini's second wife, Gene Tierney, who eventually would only wear Cassini designs onscreen. As a result, Cassini costumes appeared in The Razor's Edge (1946); The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947); That Wonderful Urge (1948); Whrilpool (1949); Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), in which Cassini appeared as a fashion designer; and The Mating Season and On the Riviera (both 1951).

After the war, Cassini designed ready-to-wear dresses while continuing to design for television, motion pictures, and Broadway.

Cassini shot to international stardom, however, in the early 1960s, thanks to his association with Jacqueline Kennedy. "We are on the threshold of a new American elegance thanks to Mrs. Kennedy's beauty, naturalness, understatement, exposure and symbolism," Cassini said when his selection as the couturier to shape the entire look of the First Lady was announced.

The fashion industry, however, was shocked at Cassini's selection by the White House. As Women's Wear Daily journalist John Fairchild wrote in his 1965 book The Fashionable Savages, "Everyone was surprised. Oleg Cassini had been around for years. He was debonair, amusing, social, but none of the fashion intellectuals had considered him an important designer."

The publicity that Cassini's work for Jacqueline Kennedy received led women from 18 to 80 to copy the look of simple, geometric dresses in sumptuous fabrics and pillbox hats with an elegant coiffure. Meticulously tailored and featuring oversized buttons and boxy jackets, as well as occasionally dramatic décolletage, it was a style that was inspired by the work of Hubert de Givenchy. Cassini designed a reported 300 outfits for the First Lady, including a much-copied coat made of leopard pelts and a heavy satin gown for the inaugural ball in 1961; the Cassini outfits were paid for by her father-in-law, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.. [5]

Cassini in the 1974 AMC Matador showing some of the interior trim he designed
Enlarge
Cassini in the 1974 AMC Matador showing some of the interior trim he designed

The name recognition that he gained during these years led him to be the first designer to have licensing agreements, with his name adorning everything from luggage to nail polish, as well as a special luxurious trim package available on coupé versions of the 1974 and 1975 AMC Matador automobile.[1] "All I remember about those days are nerves, and Jackie on the phone 'Hurry, hurry, Oleg, I've got nothing to wear'," he wrote in his 1995 book, A Thousand Days of Magic: Dressing Jacqueline Kennedy for the White House.

His designs were shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2001 in its exhibit Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years, which was curated by Vogue's European editor at large, Hamish Bowles.

Cover of autobiography In My Own Fashion

Cassini's autobiography, In My Own Fashion, was published in 1987.

His partnership with David's Bridal was formed in the 1990s, and they had a line of his wedding dresses at the time of his death.

First marriage

On September 2, 1938, in Elkton, Maryland -- a Russian Orthodox ceremony took place in New York City on September 16 -- Cassini became the fourth husband of Mary "Merry" Fahrney, a daughter of Chicago industrialist Emory Homer Fahrney and his wife, the former Marion L. Hills. She was an heiress to the Dr. Peter Fahrney & Sons patent medicine fortune. In addition to having a small role in the 1934 motion picture Cleopatra, which was directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starred Claudette Colbert, Merry Fahrney was an aviator and parachutist frequently known in gossip columns as Madcap Merry. She had previously been married to and divorced from (1) Hugh Parker Pickering, by whom she had a son, Peter, who was adopted at 15 months of age by his maternal grandparents and given the surname Fahrney; (2) Frank Van Sands Eizsner; and (3) Baron Arturo Berlingieri, to whom she was married from July 31, 1937 until February 3, 1938.

According to Cassini's memoirs, it was on his honeymoon when he realized that he had been married, apparently, for reasons other than heartfelt affection. He recalled that his new bride "smoked cigarettes one after another with the casual arrogance of the carnally satisfied. I was just another scalp." However, considering Fahrney's wealth and Cassini's lack of it, the decision to wed likely was deemed mutually beneficial, whatever the groom's belated regrets.

Nearly two months after Fahrney and Cassini married, on October 26, her divorce from Berlingieri was reversed on appeal. The Illinois Appellate Court declared the divorce invalid on the grounds that the former Baroness Berlingieri's claim of being beaten up four times on her honeymoon was unproven, that she had not established beyond doubt that the baron tried to extort US$200,000 from her, and that as she was an Italian citizen by marriage, the Chicago court had no jurisdiction. The divorce, however, was soon resolved in her favor. [2]

Fahrney's divorce from Cassini, which was granted on February 5 1940, was equally dramatic. She won her case by proving "marital misconduct" on her husband's part, stemming from evidence presented that Cassini had been in the company of "a scantily clad young woman" in his apartment in the Hotel Lowell in New York City. Curiously, however, Fahrney and her first husband, Hugh Pickering, were reported to have been in an adjoining room with an automobile salesman, spying on the couple. Cassini, for his part, denied he had been unfaithful and attempted to prove that his wife had had extramarital affairs, presenting testimony from his cook and the couple's former butler, who claimed that Merry Cassini had been caught in compromising circumstances on three occasions. Cassini also declared that his wife had bought clothes for another man, socialite La Grand Griswold. (Griswold, for his part, testified that he had asked Merry Cassini to be his wife, but that she had refused, saying that she already had a husband.) In handing down the divorce decree in Merry Cassini's favor, the judge declared the defendant's claims of wifely adultery were "unworthy of belief." [3]

In 1941, Merry Fahrney married her fifth husband, a Swede, whom she divorced the same year. In 1944, she married her sixth husband, Carlos Ojeda, Jr., a son of the Mexican ambassador to Argentina. [4]

Second marriage

Cassini's second wife was the American movie star Gene Tierney (1920 - 1991), whom he married on July 11, 1941. The Cassinis had two daughters, Antoinette Daria Cassini (born October 15, 1943), who was born mentally retarded, due to her mother's bout during pregnancy with German measles, and Christina "Tina" Cassini (born November 19, 1948). Cassini in interviews and his autobiography felt that Agathe Christie used the real life tragedy of his and Tierneys as the basis of her plot for The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. As related in Tierney's autobiography (Self-Portrait. New York: Wyden,1979, but well publicized for years previously) in June 1943, while pregnant with her first child, Tierney came down with the German measles, contracted during her only appearance at the Hollywood Canteen. The baby, Daria, was born prematurely, weighing only 3 pounds and 2 ounces, and requiring a total blood transfusion. The infant was also deaf, partially blind with cataracts, was severely retarded and ultimately had to be institutionalized. Some time after, Tierney learned from a fan who approached at her a garden party for a autograph that the women, who had been a member of the women's branch of the Marine Corps, had sneaked out of quarantine while sick with the German measles to meet her at her only Hollywood Canteen appearance. This incident, as well as the circumstances under which the information is imparted to the actress, is repeated almost verbatim in the story.

Fraught with problems that included Tierney's serious depression after the birth of the couple's daughter with disabilities, Cassini's marriage was short but volatile. Both husband and wife had extramarital relationships, with Tierney's (while separated from Cassini) including romances with John F. Kennedy and Tyrone Power. Tierney won an uncontested divorce in California that year; the action was withdrawn since the couple reconciled before the divorce was made final. However, another divorce action was filed in Los Angeles, California on February 28, 1952, with Tierney declaring that her husband cared more about his tennis game than his wife; the final decree was granted on April 8, 1953. She was romanced and engaged to the Prince Aly Khan after her divorce. Their engagement was strongly opposed by the Prince's father the Aga Khan. Soon after Tierney broke off their engagement. After a series of emotional set backs, she married oil baron W.Howard Smith in 1960 and was happily married until his death in 1981.

After his divorce from Tierney, Cassini was, for a brief period of time, unofficially engaged to the actress Grace Kelly.

Cassini and Tierney remain life long friends, Cassini has been quoted "Gene is the luckiest, unlucky girl in the world", all of her dreams came true, at a cost.

Death

He died from complications of a stroke in Manhasset, New York at 92 years of age. He was survived by his third wife, Marianne, his two children, and four grandchildren. He was predeceased by his brother Igor Cassini. At the time of his death, Cassini lived in a Manhattan townhouse and a house in the Town of Oyster Bay, New York, whose property once had been part of the estate of Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Books authored

  • Cassini, Oleg (1987). In My Own Fashion: An Autobiography. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671626-40-X. 
  • Cassini, Oleg (1995). A Thousand Days of Magic: Dressing Jacqueline Kennedy for the White House. Rizzoli International Publications. ISBN 0-847819-00-0. 

References

  • Tierney, Gene (1979). Self-Portrait. Peter Wyden. ISBN 0-883261-52-9. 
  • "Revokes Fahrney Divorce: Illinois Court Acts in the Case of Woman Rewed Here," The New York Times, 27 October 1938, page 12.
  • "Testifies Against Count: Former Merry Fahrney Tells of Seeing Husband in Hotel," The New York Times, 30 January 1940, page 3; "Countess Heard in Suit: Heiress Denies She Bought Clothes for Another Man," The New York Times, 31 January 1940, page 12; "Cassini Divorce Weighed: Two Maids of Countess Heard as Testimony Is Completed," The New York Times, 1 February 1940, page 19.
  • According to the Los Angeles Times, 18 March 2006, Merry Fahrney was married and divorced nine times. Cassini's obituary in Fashion Wire Daily, however, stated that Fahrney was married and divorced eight times.
  • Horwell, Veronica, "Oleg Cassini," The Guardian, 20 March 2006.
  1. ^ information about this version, Retrieved on: July 28, 2007.

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Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Modern Fashion Encyclopedia. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Oleg Cassini" Read more

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