Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: The first lady of fashion set her own style: Although betrayed by her marriage to Onassis, the public was unable to end its love affair with America's undisputed queen of fashion - She was modern, ice-cool and always elegant, recalls Alison Veness Fashion Correspondent

IF SHE looked a million dollars, it was because she spent that amount on clothes every year. Jackie Onassis was the ultimate clothes-horse, utterly dedicated to the addictive art of designer shopping.

But she was not a slavish follower of fashion; Jackie Onassis perfected her own style. She gave those fabulously expensive clothes an interpretation so strong that her look has become a distinctive way of dressing.

The little shift dresses, boxy suits and knee-length trapeze coats accessorised with chocolate- box-pretty handbags, pillbox hats and large, oval sunglasses, came to epitomise her look.

The style was apparent from the moment she became America's First Lady, wearing for Inauguration Day a neat, fawn wool coat designed by Oleg Cassini and a matching pillbox hat by Halston. In contrast with former First Ladies at the ceremony, all muffled up in fur coats, Jackie Kennedy's appearance was revolutionary, youthful, modern, ice- cool and elegant.

She had a passion for European designers, her favourites Balenciaga, Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, Ungaro, Dior and Chanel. She shopped at Charles Jourdan for her knee-length boots, Ferragamo for shoes and Gucci for her classic Hobo handbags.

She was impulsive, spending fortunes in minutes, although she would return many of her purchases the next day. Often she simply wore them once and then took them to upmarket secondhand shops on Madison Avenue. If she found a cashmere cardigan she liked and it came in 18 colours she would buy all 18, twice over.

In the early Sixties her manic spending was publicly criticised by President Kennedy. She was forced to cut down on her chic Parisian labels in favour of lesser- known American designers. But she found them impossible to give up.

The day Kennedy was shot she was wearing a sugar-pink boucle Chanel suit, a label she continued to wear until 1975.

Madame de Clermont-Tonnerre, a spokeswoman for Chanel in Paris says: 'She was a loyal customer and she was very influential. She was the big star of the moment, the only woman at that time to totally embody elegance. She was much more elegant than say Princess Caroline or the Princess of Wales are now. She was a model for many women.'

For her wedding to Aristotle Onassis in 1968, she wore a lace-covered beige dress by the Italian couturier Valentino. It became their most successful couture piece ever, copied 29 times. She continued to wear Valentino throughout her life.

Yesterday Valentino paid her fulsome tribute: 'Her style was always a great inspiration for my work. She had this inner quality to make elegant the simplest dress, the most shabby raincoat, the oldest pair of slacks. Her way to wear a scarf, a pair of sunglasses, to choose a bag or shoes or go barefoot, or with a tiara was natural, she was not thinking twice, she knew by instinct.'

In the late Seventies she adopted a slightly sportier look, epitomised by skinny cashmere T-shirts and gently flared pants. It was elegant, classic, and timeless. In 1989 the Sixties Jackie Kennedy look became fashionable again. Little candy-coloured suits, shift dresses and tailored coats appeared on the catwalks at Chanel, Oscar de la Renta, Carolina Herrera, Isaac Mizrahi, Bill Blass and Carolyne Roehm. Fashion shoots in every magazine featured a hybrid of the Kennedy and Onassis style, with the ubiquitous 'O' glasses, tiny hats and bags.

Alexandra Shulman, editor of British Vogue says: 'She had a very definite style and that's been proven by the iconic images of her. These are enduring images and that's what real style is about. I don't believe she set a style though, she just embodied an understated, contemporary elegance.'

(Photographs omitted)