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Ari and Jackie Onassis: The U.S. First Lady as Greek Wife & Paris Resident (Part 4)

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In Greece, Jackie Onassis played a deferring wife to Ari Onassis. The 40th birthday of Jackie Kennedy Onassis on July 28, 1969 was celebrated at a raucous all-night bash in an Athens nightclub, hosted by her husband. It lasted until seven the next morning. After her Athens 40th birthday bash, Jackie Onassis and sister-in-law Artemis stroll Pandrossou. Jackie Onassis in a china shop near the old market center. Emerging into the daylight not only with the famous Apollo 11 jeweled earrings he gave her as a gift but also wearing a wild mod-patterned micro mini-skirt, Jackie Onassis wasn’t ready to head home with him. Instead, she decided to start walking through the city with Artemis, who led her into the streets of the ancient Monastiraki district. Here was not only the local food markets but also storefronts, carts and open-air stalls where native Greek wares from glass, pottery, clothes, and other items were sold by the hand-craftsmen who made them. As it would turn out, it would be a place to which Jackie Onassis would return many times overs the years.  It was one of her favorite haunts in Athens. Jackie Onassis shopping on Pandrossou Street where she met Melissinos the famous poet sandalmaker of Athens. The two women popped in and out of stores, looking over everything from jewelry made of old coins and polished-stone jewelry to natural sponges fished from the sea. Once known by the flea market and shoe-making factories located there, Jackie Onassis meandered onto the historic section’s old, narrow Pandrossou Street, at the foot of the Acropolis, immediately drawn to a window filled with leather sandals in a wide variety of styles. Jackie Onassis looks over some sandals. She entered to watch the craftsman inside as he tooled on a pair of footware, only to discover an instant affinity for him. Sharing many of her own literary interests, Stavros Melissinos was a poet, playwright and translator known as the “Poet Sandal-Maker of Athens. ” Before she left with several pairs of a particular design she liked and unwittingly popularized (and which he would later name after her), Jackie Onassis also learned that an entire portion of the historic shopping district was scheduled to be demolished. The Jackie Onassis sandals. The city had already begun scheduling plans to pull down building and make way for an archeological dig intended to uncover some of the ancient walls

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Categories: Ari & Jackie Onassis, History, The Kennedys

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