Like most people chronically online, my Instagram feed, too, is filled with pictures, stills and remembrances of the late Mrs Kennedy following the release of Ryan Murphy’s Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette.
The duo who ruled headlines in the 90s before their tragic deaths are once again subjects of interest for their cool, chic and understated style. Suddenly, one can see a surge in straight-leg jeans and black turtlenecks. Prints are out of fashion, and solids are the new black. Tips and Pinterest boards flood timelines with how to dress like the couple.
Carolyn Bessette, in particular, is the latest style icon. Although she had faded to obscurity for the better part of 30 years. The former Calvin Klein publicist is suddenly the new “It girl.” Her iconic “no-makeup” makeup look, insistence on fashion staples, and overall minimalist aesthetic are ruling TikTok trends.
What is the Carolyn Bessette aesthetic?
Both Carolyn and JFK Jr are fashion “inspos” for the youth of today. But Sarah Pidgeon’s portrayal of the New Yorker has made Gen-Z reach into the backs of their mothers’ closets for tortoiseshell headbands and simple spaghetti dresses.
Carolyn was famous for her business-casual-meets-runway looks. But she also knew the power of repetition. Like English actor Jane Birkin, Carolyn embodied one rule: Fashion is meant to be worn. From her Prada loafers to designer bags, to her accessories from the Greenwich Village apothecary C.O. Bigelow, the fashion publicist was something straight out of The Devil Wears Prada — she was just how one would imagine someone working in fashion to be: Chic and curated.
In fact, after the release of the FX series, Google Trends showed over 5,000 per cent spikes in terms like “CBK wedding dress” and related accessories.
With listicles and op-eds galore, fashion magazines are working overtime to print articles on her — her style, her life, even people who met her once are now piping up. But the question remains: Is Carolyn Bessette Kennedy really a fashion icon or is she just the latest trend?
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What makes an icon?
By all means, Carolyn is no Princess Diana—who has remained immortal—or even her mother-in-law, Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Those two have long ruled the late-20th-century fashion imagination and were crowned as icons of luxury style. But they were never “divas.” You never had the sense that the clothes were wearing them. The same can be said for Carolyn, of course.
But it has always been about more than just the wardrobe. Di and Jackie have remained in popular imagination because of their personalities or perhaps their tragic life stories. And while Carolyn does show a similar trajectory of epic love and loss, her place in society seems rather temporary.
She, however, fits the current analogue aesthetic of “quiet luxury”—the sudden revival of minimalism, and the nostalgia for late 1990s and early 2000s fashion. Carolyn is the moment. But she is not perennial. She was stylish, yes. But she was not glamorous.
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(Edited by Ratan Priya)