Carolyn and I first met at a petrol station in Manchester in 1996. I, a classics student at the city’s university, was running in after a lecture to buy… whatever; she, recently married, was standing by her husband, John F Kennedy Jr, staring out at me from the front cover of a magazine. It was her first week as “The New Mrs Kennedy!” standing next to John wearing a black V-neck sweater, camel midi-skirt, tan boots and a black bag. The ensemble was nothing, yet everything.
Before her marriage, Carolyn – a PR executive at, and muse to, Calvin Klein – was already considered an arbiter of taste within her New York circle. But after the wedding (her Narciso Rodriguez silk slip, masterfully cut on the bias, proved a radical re-imagining of the bridal gown), she became the protagonist of her own fashion story – one that, 24 years after her death at 33 years old, in a plane accident that also killed her husband and sister, has become something closer to lore.
The Kennedy cocktail of sophistication and power from President JFK’s era continued to fizz into the ’90s thanks to John and Carolyn, New York society’s most toasted couple. Unsurprisingly, Carolyn’s allure was such that a camera met her every turn. Each outfit captured by the paparazzi was prized and pored over, whether it was a pristine evening look, such as an off-the-shoulder bustier and obi-sash skirt suit by Yohji Yamamoto, or the black tank, Levi’s 517s and Prada sandals she wore to walk her dog, Friday. She always sidestepped the obvious, swerving patrician labels and refused to sentimentally accessorise with her mother in-law, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s, jewellery. Instead, she mostly favoured the new avant-garde creations of designers such as Yamamoto and Ann Demeulemeester: white tuxedo shirts, peplum jackets and asymmetrical skirts. Her coats? Well they were all Prada, Prada, Prada. Everyone was spellbound.
Fashion schooling often begins at home: for me, that was a cheery cul-de-sac in Coventry. My grandmother and mother adored dressing in ebullient colours, complete with earrings and a necklace. Gifted with Bollywood-like big eyes, lips and hair, they shared a vivacious sense of style, while I had finer features, a straight body and hair to match. Any attempt to follow their suit and I would resemble an emaciated Christmas tree, decked out in cheap baubles. Neither was I able to embrace the insouciant English “anything goes” vibe. My transition from student to woman felt imminent and I just couldn’t find myself, style-wise, until that Carolyn moment.
She spoke a fashion language that I could translate to my life; the cultural, social and economic disparities between us, no longer in play. Her look said, “Here I am, immaculately dressed in a masculine silhouette with my femininity intact.” There were no feminine frills, prints or over-accessorising, nor was it overt power dressing. Her mastery lay in the simplicity of her clothes: a clutch of carefully considered separates, meticulously fitted to a strict cluster of tonal hues. Stealth wealth, quiet luxury, call it what you will, she was the first to make it hers.
“Nothing about her style was forced, that is what made her so charismatic,” writes Gabriela Hearst in her contribution to my new book, CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, A Life in Fashion, which looks at our enduring fascination with this icon of minimalist glamour. “Hers was not an opulent style, but it was luxurious. The fact that she had just a few pieces shows how modern she was.” Manolo Blahnik puts it down to her “extraordinary combination of good education, manners, flawless looks, grace. Then there was this way she talked and moved, you could tell she loved what she was wearing because of her movement. Even in jeans, T-shirt and sandals, she had it – just that little bit of extra that people strive or kill for.” Maybe you would?
Two decades on, fashion designers still pin Carolyn on to their moodboards; a Central Saint Martins lecturer told me recently that her students do precisely this. Beyond the fashion cognoscenti, the public continues to be riveted by her too. There are only a finite number of photos, yet Instagram accounts are dedicated to her every outing, videos featuring her on TikTok have had tens of millions of views, and many of today’s new breed of influencer clamour to associate their personas with Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, the ultimate purveyor of effortless effort.
