The Weekend: Litchfi eld, CT

LEGACY

Jackie & Jane

From Vassar to immortality. By James Long

“i’ve been admiring your tie.”

It was hardly a memorable line if not for the person who said it to me. I stood, napkin in hand, to ease her path as she and her dinner companion le their cozily adjacent table at Manhattan’s Café Luxembourg, a favorite restaurant of mine on the Upper West Side where I’d taken my assistant for her birthday. Half an hour earlier, the maître d’ seated us mere inches away from their table, and as my assistant settled onto their shared red banquette, I politely tried to keep my focus on her. And, yet I couldn’t help stealing glances at her.

She was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, in a coordinating ecru jacket and skirt. A er her compliment (in her signature dulcet tone), I humbly replied, “Thank you,” and watched as the restaurant’s bons viveurs became a controlled study in how the brain regulates the movements of our eyes toward discrete intended targets.

Upon Mrs. Onassis’ departure, my assistant and I, both able to breathe normally again, regaled ourselves with everything “Jackie.” My earliest sighting of her had been as a mere tyke with my mother, among other hushed onlookers, behind a chain link fence near the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base, where my father was stationed, when then-Mrs. Kennedy had returned from Dallas as a widow on Air Force One. My assistant had gone to the same college as the former First Lady; Jacqueline Bouvier, as she was then known, attended Vassar in Poughkeepsie in the late ’40s. “And so did Jane Fonda,” my assistant reminded me. Two fashion icons, two style heavyweights, enrolled eight years apart. Jackie and Jane. First Lady and Sci-Fi’s Barbarella—embedding, if not de ning, some of the most important style moments of the 1950s and ’60s. As it happened, neither alum ended up graduating from Vassar, but had they, I have no doubt that the consummate trendsetters would’ve worn their gowns, mortarboards and tassels with the utmost panache. Much like I sported that tie.

electoral college Jacqueline Bouvier, here with sister Lee, attended Vassar College for two years. In 1963, as First Lady, Mrs. Kennedy delivered the Commencement Address; (left) Similarly, Jane Fonda was enrolled at Vassar from 1955-57.

GET

Field + Supply Gem

By Mitch Rustad

Slab Leather Oval Tray Oxblood

“I thought of it as an entry table or bedside tray, a little bit of an organizational thing,” says designer/leather-worker Mary L. Chan of this elegant Slab Leather Oval Tray Oxblood, which is functional, decorative and wholly unique. The construction is slab leather, typically used for soles of shoes, which is hand dyed and re ned with a matching smooth calfskin interior and discreet tonal stitched detail.

“I don’t know anybody else who’s making a tray this way,” says Chan, owner of Bartleby Objects, who hand-makes every product with partner and frequent collaborator, Mark A. Williams, in their Brooklyn Navy Yard studio. “I like to think all of these things we make as the punctuation to each room in your house,” she says. FieldandSupply.com $320

Farnsworth Fine Accessories Set in Silver + Gold

“The set was designed with the intention to celebrate cannabis, in the same way cigar smokers have long had elegant and functional accessories for their enjoyment,” says Alexander Farnsworth, founder of Farnsworth Fine Cannabis in Great Barrington.

The aptly named Fine Accessories Set in Silver + Gold includes a match box cover, cigarette holder, small hummingbird motif ashtray, and rolling paper holder (“One of my favorites in the set,” says Farnsworth). “It’s meant to be a travel set, but you can have it on a bedside table or living room co ee table as well,” he says. FarnsworthFineCannabis.com $495

Moroccan Poufs

“What’s so cool about them and one of their biggest selling points is they mix in with any style of decor—modern or antique or vintage—they look great anywhere,” says Emily Irwin, of these elegant Moroccan poufs, made of real tanned leather with hand stitched embroidered detail.

The poufs come pre-stu ed or you can opt for an unstu ed one. The poufs come in tan, brown, white, black, gold, silver and aqua. Instagram.com/ HomeLoveBerkshires $170 (unstu ed); $190 (stu ed)