Jenna Bush Hager has struck a pose in the Oscar de la Renta coat she wore at her father George W. Bush’s second presidential inauguration in 2005 while reflecting on how her body has changed since having three children.
The Today host, 39, was photographed modeling the ivory beaded jacket for a shoot featured in People’s Beautiful Issue. The former First Daughter, who was in her early 20s when she wore the designer piece, revealed she hadn’t tried it on once in 16 years.
‘My life has changed in so many ways. I carried three precious beings in this body, so even though it’s a little depressing that it doesn’t fit exactly the same, it’s also beautiful because of what I’ve done since then,’ she told the magazine. ‘I created these precious people that fill me up more than a size 2 or size 4 jacket ever could.
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Iconic: Jenna Bush Hager, 39, was photographed modeling the Oscar de la Renta jacket she wore at her father’s second inauguration for a shoot featured in People’s Beautiful Issue
Memories: The former First Daughter, pictured with her twin sister Barbara, was in her early 20s when she donned the designer piece at her father George W. Bush’s inauguration in 2005
Three years after the inauguration, Jenna married her husband, Henry Hager, wearing a gown designed by the late de la Renta, who died in 2014.
‘He was a beloved man in my life,’ she said of the designer.
Jenna and Henry now have three children together: Mila, seven, Poppy, five, and Hal, who will turn two in August. When asked which one of her kids will inherit the sentimental jacket, she wasn’t sure.
‘I don’t know, they’re going to have to fight over it,’ she said, adding: ‘I might want to wear it again, too! It’s very rock star.’
Special occasion: Jenna’s mother, former First Lady Laura Bush, had the jacket put ‘in an archive box’ in Dallas, Texas, but shipped it to her to wear during her magazine shoot
Self-love: The mother of three admitted it was a ‘little depressing’ that it doesn’t fit the same way, but she noted that she ‘carried three precious beings in this body’
Jenna’s mother, former First Lady Laura Bush, had the jacket put ‘in an archive box’ in Dallas, Texas, but shipped it to her to wear during her magazine shoot.
When she first donned the beaded jacket in 2005, she paired it with a light tan sweater and matching dress pants.
This time around, she went for a more casual look, wearing it over a white T-shirt tucked into flared jeans and platform sandals.
Looking back at her time as First Daughter, Jenna said she and her twin sister Barbara didn’t feel any pressure to look a certain way.
Looking back: Jenna said she and Barbara didn’t have stylists, explaining that they just wore American designers that they loved
What’s important: ‘We were allowed to be ourselves,’ Jenna said. ‘We thought less about the clothes we wore and more about the amazing experience of living history’
‘We didn’t have a stylist. I still don’t have a stylist. We just were what we thought was pretty. We wore things that our friends designed [and] American designers that we love,’ she told the magazine.
‘Honestly there were no expectations to look perfect or any sort of way when it came to my family,’ she added.
‘We were allowed to be ourselves. We thought less about the clothes we wore and more about the amazing experience of living history.’
Jenna has been to a number of inaugurations in her lifetime, starting with her paternal grandfather George H.W. Bush’s in 1989.
Like family: The late Oscar de la Renta also designed the gown that Jenna wore to marry her husband, Henry Hager, in 2008. ‘He was a beloved man in my life,’ she said of the designer
Party of five: Jenna and Henry now have three children together: Mila, seven, Poppy, five, and Hal, who will turn two in August
In a recent interview with Maria Shriver’s The Sunday Paper, she reflected on her grandfather’s inauguration, explaining that the event, which she attended when she was just seven years old, was her ‘earliest memory’.
‘My sister [Barbara] and I were little — we were in first grade — and we didn’t quite understand the significance of it,’ she said. ‘We just saw somebody that we loved being sworn into office. We loved balloons and the parade.
‘And we’re from Texas so even just to be in Washington when it was cold and beautiful and wintery — it was almost like living a dream.’
Jenna recalled that she and Barbara were ‘freezing’ outside, so their mother, Laura, let them return to the White House early before anyone else.
Florist Nancy Clarke took the girls to the floral shop and had them make bouquets for their grandparents’ bedside. Nearly two decades later, she hired Clarke to do the flower arrangements when she got married.