Carolyn Bessette Kennedy is still a fashion icon
Almost 25 years after her death Carolyn Bessette Kennedy is a timeless reminder of why what we wear matters.
Almost 25 years after her death alongside husband John F. Kennedy Jr in a plane crash, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy remains the ultimate fashion muse.
For a time one of the most famous women in the world, the former Calvin Klein publicist has become the poster girl for a certain kind of meaningful minimalism.
Her style, described as “effortful effortlessness” and “throwaway chic”, has inspired everybody from Ralph Lauren (who was said to instruct his designers to think of her as their muse for his take on American elegance) to Tory Burch. Larger-than-life designer Michael Kors once described her as “the perfect image of the American girl”.
Earlier this year popular streetwear brand Sporty & Rich published an advertising campaign that re-created some of the best-known paparazzi photos of Bessette Kennedy and Kennedy from the 1990s.
In August came news that TV producer Ryan Murphy was planning a spin-off of his American Story series that would be based on the couple’s relationship.
As well, there are several social media accounts dedicated to documenting Bessette Kennedy’s style, such as @allforcarolyn (97,000 followers), @carolynbessette (55,000 followers) and @carolyn_iconic (45,300 followers).
And countless online articles offer shopping guides for channelling Bessette Kennedy’s style, no matter what your budget.
Her influence also can be felt in luxury brands with a cult following among a certain kind of woman – The Row, Khaite – and in this year’s most pervasive fashion trend, “quiet luxury”.
Bessette Kennedy’s clothes, mostly monochrome and with deceptively simple, clean lines, were sophisticated and individualistic. They were pared back but the opposite of basic.
She wore clothes by avant-garde Japanese designers such as Yohji Yamamoto and Commes des Garcons and bold Prada coats, belted tight like armour. There was that slip dress she wore to her 1996 wedding, designed by the then barely known designer Narciso Rodriguez, that changed how we think about wedding dresses.
Some of her best known outfits, such as the Yohji Yamamoto white shirt and black slip skirt she wore to a gala in New York, have been referenced by the likes of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.
Indeed, Bessette Kennedy, a woman who exists in the public domain in the handful of photos we’ve all seen, who was intensely private and who never gave an interview, said a lot with her clothes.
As The Washington Post’s former fashion editor Robin Givhan wrote of Bessette Kennedy and her husband in 2019 on the 20th anniversary of their death: “The couple died before the era of Instagram and Twitter, back when personal lives were something that people still sought to protect rather than curate and then monetise. The couple died when discretion was admirable, before it became quaint and then vaguely obsolete.”
Ultimately though, she remains unknowable.
It is this mystique, in our age of oversharing, that British stylist and author Sunita Kumar Nair was keenly aware of in her new book that unpacks Bessette Kennedy’s style, CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, A Life in Fashion. Surprisingly, given the enduring obsession with Bessette Kennedy’s style, it is the first book to venture into such territory.
The book is broken into chapters that investigate the staples of her style, such as the shirt, the coat and the beige, and includes interviews with Bessette Kennedy’s friends, former colleagues and fashion industry luminaries such as Tommy Hilfiger and Donna Karan. Kumar Nair was careful to be respectful of Bessette Kennedy’s reticence and focuses only on her clothes and what they in turn revealed.
“Carolyn was a super-private person and I wanted to maintain that, and hear how she chose to present her persona through her clothes, that is what CBK: A Life in Fashion is about,” Kumar Nair says. “It’s a chance for the fashion world to decipher what she stood for from a fashion perspective. Carolyn wanted to remain mysterious and that is the most important thing she managed to maintain.”
Kumar Nair says part of the enduring appeal of Bessette Kennedy’s style – which captured the essence of the ’90s but remains relevant – is partly because she really, truly loved clothes.
As Kumar Nair details in the book, Bessette Kennedy respected designers’ work. She would take her time to investigate the cuts, fabrics and details of clothes and she often re-wore her favourite pieces. More than that, though, she was original in her choices and her styling. She knew what she liked and stuck to it.
“There is a timelessness about her fashion because she didn’t cave into trends and I think that is the best thing you can do for yourself, be true to what makes you feel good and what you naturally feel attracted to,” Kumar Nair says.
Ultimately too, as outgoing British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful says in an introduction to the book, Bessette Kennedy simply had that impossible to define it-factor. Like obscenity, you know it when you see it.
As for the outfits with the most impact, Kumar Nair says Bessette Kennedy’s casual clothes for shopping and dog walking, her knee-length statement Prada coats and famous Yohji looks such as the peplum skirt suit and the bustier top and skirt with long opera gloves remain her favourites.
As the book details, Bessette Kennedy understood the power of fashion as a form of protection and an expression of identity.
As The Washington Post fashion journalist and critic Rachel Tashjian recently wrote, there is much we can glean from the way Bessette Kennedy thought about her clothes. Most of it has little to do with what she actually wore.
“What you can learn from Bessette Kennedy’s style is not how to wear a coat or how to make a T-shirt and khakis look like an incredible outfit,” Tashjian wrote. “Instead, it’s how to develop your sense of self and articulate it through what you wear. Not to chase after the things that everyone else wears, or seek to look the way others do. Instead, your individuality can be a way to find privacy in a world that constantly denies it to you.”
As Kumar Nair notes, Bessette Kennedy was a woman who knew exactly what she was doing. “I think as a PR woman she knew how to wear clothes that she felt comfortable in and protected her from the media glare,” she says. “She understood and enjoyed fashion, and I think that is key, when you understand what works for you, your confidence stands out.”
CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, A Life in Fashion is out now.
