Letizia Mowinckel, Who Procured the Pink Chanel Suit Jackie Kennedy Wore During JFK's Assassination, Dies at 105

For years, the American diplomat's wife used a fabricated story about a royal relative to discreetly scout garments for the first lady

NEED TO KNOW

• Letizia Mowinckel, an American diplomat’s wife and fashion scout to Jackie Kennedy, has died at age 105
• She discreetly sourced French designer pieces for the former first lady, including the pink Chanel suit she wore on the day of her husband President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963
• Jackie once praised Letizia’s “fantastic eye” and discretion, calling her “an angel and a genius”

Letizia Mowinckel, who sourced the pink Chanel suit Jackie Kennedy wore on the day of her husband President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, has died.

The fashion scout to the former first lady — and wife of Italian-born journalist and American diplomat John W. Mowinckel — died at a retirement home run by nuns in Rome, Italy, on Saturday, Feb. 14, according to The Times and The New York Times. She was 105.

Letizia (née Maria Letizia Crostarosa) was born in Rome on Sept. 21, 1920, and married her husband, whom she met while studying law at the University of Rome, in 1947, according to the outlets.

The couple often threw parties, including a Roman bash in 1954 where Letizia — who spoke Italian, French, English and Portuguese — met Jackie, according to The New York Times. The two women crossed paths several more times over the years, until a 1961 exchange at the America's Cup, a Rhode Island sailing competition, altered the nature of their relationship.

At the event, held shortly after JFK became president, Jackie expressed admiration for a pair of pants that Letizia purchased in Paris at a discount, per The New York Times. Letizia then offered to have some made for the then-first lady — a proposal that blossomed from there.

Jackie enlisted the diplomat’s wife, who was living in Paris at the time, to buy items from French fashion designers and send them to the White House — discreetly, as the former first lady had seen backlash over an apparent preference for designers outside of the United States, per The New York Times.

According to the newspaper, Letizia crafted a made-up story about a princess cousin to shop for Jackie — a fabricated tale she eventually used to purchase the pink double-breasted wool suit and matching pillbox hat that the then-first lady was wearing on Nov. 22, 1963, when JFK was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas.

Letizia later said that she selected the suit — which was first shown in Chanel’s 1961 fall/winter collection, and ultimately became one of the most iconic fashion items in U.S. history — because Jackie “looked terrific in that shade of pink, with her Palm Beach suntan,” per The New York Times and The Times.

Jackie wore the piece— which was a Coco Chanel-approved copy made in New York using Parisian Chanel components, per Justine Picardie’s 2010 biography of Chanel — several times, including the day when JFK was shot and killed while riding in the back of an open-topped limousine alongside his wife.

Despite it being stained with her late husband's blood, Jackie insisted on continuing to wear the pink suit. She was later photographed wearing it when Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president in the immediate aftermath, and did not take it off until the day after the assassination, when she returned to the White House and bathed.

While it's not clear where exactly the suit went next, it was sent in its bloodied condition to the National Archives sometime before July 1964, where it remains to this day.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

The final outfit that Letizia obtained for Jackie was a black Chanel suit for mourning in 1964, per The Times and The New York Times. The two women kept in touch for several years, but lost touch after Jackie’s marriage to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, whom she wed in October 1968.

Of her relationship with Jackie — which was singular, as she never acted as a fashion adviser to anyone else — Letizia later said that JFK's wife had established her style prior to their kinship. But “at her request, I helped select specific unique pieces that I thought might dazzle and inspire,” Letizia said of the former first lady, per The Times.

Jackie, meanwhile, praised the Paris fashion scout’s “fantastic eye” and discretion, and called her “an angel and a genius,” according to the British newspaper. (The former first lady died on May 19, 1994.)

Letizia’s love of fashion endured well into her later years, according to her son, John C. Mowinckel.

Her caretakers would put her jewelry on each morning, and on the day of her death, she had a fresh ‘do courtesy of the retirement home’s in-house hairdresser, he told The New York Times, stating, “At least her hair was done.” And when she first arrived at the home, she was declared “the best-dressed woman there,” he said.

Letizia’s diplomat husband died in 2003. She is survived by her son, as well as two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, per The Times and The New York Times.

Read the full article here