Antidizionario della Moda

[…] Few women knew it, but Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who was an invisible guest, slipped into the closets of thousands of women and hung her codes: the quiet slip dress with flared hem for easy, forward motion, her practical sense of deering-do (guarding her privacy from the international paparazzi with those TV frame sunglasses); the gilt chain belts, the fully fluid toga dress in pale colors, the soft toe pilgrim shoe on a sensibile walking heel. […] Portrait of an elegant woman: in her spirited sense of non-conformity in an age of mediocrity and inhibition in high fashion had as much influence on style as the Youthquake which was propelled at the same moment by an enclave of London stylesetters. […] Valentino reflection two: “I have two definitive dresses I designed for Jacqueline since we became friends. One is the soft, sherbet green toga dress that is totally bordered along the hem in crystal and glass beads. The other is the strapless black organza with vertical spiral ruffles that she wore to the annual MET gala dinner in December 1978.” An artisan genius, Valentino created his own system -the toga line, the petal idea, the cartridge silhouette- not only to preserve the athletic mannequin-like elegance of Jacqueline Onassis but to create for thousands of imitators a new mode. The symmetry of spaced gilt buttons, the insuring chic of white gloves stabilized her modern attitude, as she sailed into another chapter of her fairy tale of glamor. (André Leon Talley – VALENTINO – Edizioni Franco Maria Ricci 1982, pagg.165-167)