Please Follow us on Gab, Minds, Telegram, Rumble, Gettr, Truth Social, Twitter
While the inauguration is the president’s day, his first lady often shines more brightly. Here are some magical first lady moments from past inaugurations.
Though Harry Truman’s 1949 inauguration was the first to be televised, the majority of Americans didn’t own a TV until the late 1950s. By the time of John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961, television was the primary medium for Americans to watch the Inauguration. Oleg Cassini, Jackie’s Hollywood designer, knew that men’s suits, women’s furs and jewel-toned dresses would show dark on black and white television. So he suggested the opposite color combination for Jackie Kennedy.
Jackie wore a pale gray-beige wool coat with oversized buttons and a matching pill box hat. The light color made her pop or stand out on black and white TV among the sea of dark coats, suits and furs.
In 1969 for the inaugural ceremony, Pat Nixon chose a red coat, which stood out brilliantly on color television, the latest technology.
Years later in 1981, Nancy Reagan’s red pillbox hat and matching “Reagan red” suit also popped on color TV as did Barbara Bush’s white hair and blue coat.
In keeping with Jackie’s tradition of wearing a stand-out suit to the ceremony that looked good on film, Melania Trump wore a sky-blue inauguration suit in 2017 that resembled the style of Jackie Kennedy’s inaugural ceremony suit.
Melania wore this Ralph Lauren cashmere dress and matching suede gloves to the inauguration.
Because Jackie Kennedy considered white as the “most ceremonial color” she also wore two white inaugural gowns. To the inaugural gala the night before the ceremony, Jackie wore an ivory satin gown accented by a white cockade at the waist as a tribute to her French heritage. For the inaugural balls, she designed her own gown and had a New York company make it for her.
For President Trump’s inaugural balls in 2017, Melania wore a vanilla silk crepe off-the-shoulder gown with a slit skirt and ruffled accent trim. Hervé Pierre designed the gown in collaboration with Melania Trump.
One of the memorable, magical inaugural moments belongs to Dolley Madison, who started the tradition of the inaugural ball.
A Navy captain approached Dolley Madison about hosting a ball. This was the same time period as Jane Austen novels, where balls played an important part of culture in Europe. Dolley liked the captain’s suggestion and the first inaugural ball took place on March 4, 1809, the evening of James Madison’s first presidential inauguration. Tickets were $4. Four-hundred people attended, crowding Long’s Hotel on Capitol Hill. The National Intelligencer newspaper called it the most “brilliant and crowded [event] ever known in Washington.”
Dolley was truly the belle of the ball. She donned a velvet, buff-colored dress “made plain, with a very long train, but not the least trimming, and beautiful pearl necklace, earrings and bracelets.” She also wore “a matching turban with white satin and feather plumes.”
By wearing modest velvet instead of opulent sheer muslin like a princess and wearing pearls instead of queenly diamonds, Dolley proved that the president’s wife wasn’t royalty. She forever defined American good taste and expectations for future first ladies—a balance of elegance and modesty.
President Madison and ex-president Jefferson also made fashion statements. They wore wool suits made in the USA to prove that Americans could depend on their own manufacturing instead of European imports.
Though this gown (above) is not Dolley’s inaugural gown (which likely perished in the 1814 burning of the White House) this ivory gown of Dolley’s is a typical style. The dress features embroidered butterflies, dragon flies and phoenixes.
Helen Taft raised eyebrows in 1909 when she became the first, first lady to ride in the inaugural parade with her husband. Previously the outgoing president and the newly-sworn in president rode together in the parade. When outgoing President Theodore Roosevelt announced that he wouldn’t be riding in the parade, Helen stepped in and sat next to her husband, President William Howard Taft. She set the tradition followed by first ladies ever since.
“Since the ex-President was not going to ride back to the White House with his successor, I decided that I would,” Helen wrote in her memoirs.
“No president’s wife had ever done it before, but as long as precedents were being disregarded I thought it might not be too great a risk for me to disregard this one.” Some members of the inaugural committee objected “. . . but I had my way and in spite of protests took my place at my husband’s side.”
Led by a mounted police from their native Ohio, they rode in a carriage drawn by four horses. Mrs. Taft wore a broad bonnet called a Merry Widow hat, flanked with white egret feathers. “For me that drive was the proudest and happiest event of Inauguration Day. Perhaps I had a little secret elation in thinking that I was doing something which no woman had ever done before.”
Indeed, she set the trend. First ladies have joined their husbands in the inaugural parade ever since.
