The Irish hands behind Jackie Kennedy's iconic pink suit

The stunning suit worn by Jackie Kennedy the day her husband was shot dead in Dallas came from the hands of a Cork-born seamstress, reports Colette Sheridan

These were the winning words of 22-year-old Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, writing in a Vogue magazine competition in 1951. She achieved her ambition later, as the stylish Jackie Kennedy, wife of US president John F Kennedy. Who hasn’t seen that iconic, pink Chanel wool suit that she wore on the tragic day of November 22, 1963, when her husband, President John F Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas? The suit is remembered stained with blood — the blood of her husband.

Much has been written about the glamorous Jackie, the profligate spender and aficionado of art and haute couture, who incurred the wrath of the garment unions for spending so much money on French fashion. Now, an American writer, Nicole Mary Kelby, has published an historical novel, The Pink Suit. This is the story of a girl from Cobh, Co Cork, one of the seamstresses at Chez Ninon, in Manhattan, who worked on the suit.