Pop culture fans have been eagerly anticipating the release of Ryan Murphy’s limited series “American Love Story,” which will chronicle the story of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr.’s tabloid maelstrom of a marriage and tragic death when their plane crashed off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard in 1999 when they were 33 and 38 years old respectively.
But for fashion obsessives and the dozens of Instagram accounts that chronicle Bessette-Kennedy’s (or CBK as many refer to her) every look as she was hunted by paparazzi during the 1990s—the red mohair Prada coat, the black silk Yohji Yamamoto trench, the Prada Spazzolato box bag—the FX series was being heralded as a fashion super bowl of sorts.
And then they saw the first images from the show—featuring British actress Sarah Pidgeon who was cast as CBK—released on Instagram on June 14.
To put it bluntly, all fashion hell broke loose and seemed to unite the internet in ways that few things do these days. The verdict? Everything about the way Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy was portrayed was just…wrong.
The outfit—a tepid brown coat, cropped black pants, and notably deflated No. 35 Birkin bag—was derided, with critics quipping that the look was more in line of Mango, Zara, and Forever 21 than Bessette-Kennedy’s famous affinity for rich neutral shades, sumptuous fabrics, and overall embodiment of quiet luxury before we had the phrase to describe it. And that Birkin? Everyone knows CBK was partial to an overstuffed size 40. Even her original colorist, Brad Johns, weighed in, as her famous blonde hair seemed too bleached and texturally inaccurate (he told the New York Post that show’s interpretation is “burnt” and “ashy.”)
By the time follow-up visuals were released that showed Pidgeon wearing a trendy-looking bronze satin midi skirt, faux leather jacket, and Converse sneakers, the people were on the verge of losing their minds.
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When fashion watchdog Instagram account Diet Prada posted the images, everyone from Moda Operandi co-founder Lauren Santo Domingo to influencer Camille Charrière commented with disdain (the post has over 1,300 comments). Stylist Gabriella Karefa-Johnson opined: “Please up the wardrobe budgets. I know the silhouettes look the same but Zara is very different from vintage Calvin, Narciso, Jil [Sander]…send help.”
The collective fervor was so loud that American Love Story creator and showrunner Murphy had to do some early damage control. “Carolyn Bessette is clearly a religious figure and it’s a religion of her own,” he told Variety, “It’s very interesting that people become so inflammatory.” He also sat down with Puck to explain that the images he shared are apparently not the show’s final looks. “It was a work in progress but I released it, because sometimes you put things out and the paparazzi backs off, so your actors don’t feel attacked,” he told the site. He also shared that there is a yet to be announced 10-person “style advisory board” is in the works to make sure the final costumes hit the right note.
(We reached out to FX for comment on the “controversy” and have yet to receive a response. We’ll update this article if we do.)
Still, fashion fans and critics weren’t appeased. “It felt like [Ryan Murphy] posted the camera test images and videos thinking he would be lauded and everyone would be excited about this series and did not expect to be derided over the costume choices,” Heather Clawson, also known as Habitually Chic on Instagram and Substack, told Glamour. “As everyone has said, the pieces they chose looked cheap and the fit was off, especially the cropped pants with the kitten heels.”
Plenty of biopics have missed a mark or two in terms of fashion accuracy, but for Bessette-Kennedy—whose mythic sense of style has been relentlessly chronicled both in life and death—the stakes feel particularly high. And, despite its presumed simplicity, nearly impossible to replicate in 2025.
Clawson attributes the challenge to the strange dichotomy between the pedestal the public has put Bessette-Kennedy on and the enigma she was and still is. Consider how little visual representation actually exists of CBK during the 1990s, the decade during which she worked in the communications department at Calvin Klein and married JFK Jr. There was no social media, no selfies, no algorithms, no steady stream of step-and-repeat photo opps, and limited paparazzi shots.
The images that regularly circulate are shockingly cohesive in terms of fashion because she had a defined point of view that felt all her own. “There are a limited number of photos of Carolyn and very few videos of her speaking so people have poured over and analyzed every single [photo of her],” Clawson says.
“In total there are maybe 15 to 20 looks we ever saw Bessette-Kennedy in,” says Jack Sehnert who runs the Instagram account @carolynbessette. “You cannot simply exchange one camel coat with another here, because we only saw her in one. It was a mistake to not source or recreate in this situation. Her clothing became her public identity as she [rarely] spoke to the press. We only know her through images and word of mouth.”
This presents a monumental challenge for Murphy: CBK obsessives know every single detail of what she’s worn through the years—down to her preferred sleeve and hemline length—and compromise doesn’t feel like an option.
“I think if you made a film about Tom Brady at his peak and offered a preview where he struggles to throw the ball properly, barely resembles Tom Brady, and is eating French fries, it would provoke a similar reaction from his devoted football fans,” knitwear designer Heidi Wynne tells Glamour.
For a Bessette-Kennedy fan like Wynne—who felt compelled to join the online conversation during the last few days—the problem is that CBK as a fashion icon is just as relevant today as she was during the 1990s.
“Images of other style icons like Brigitte Bardot, Jane Birkin, or even Jackie [Kennedy] and Lee [Radziwill] feel like they belong to a different era,” Wynne says. “You wouldn’t necessarily search on 1stDibs or eBay for their exact outfits, as they wouldn’t look modern. With Carolyn, however, her personal style is still appropriate today. She wore such well-made, classic pieces that you want to emulate her exact style. I’ll admit, I’ve been guilty of almost duplicating a few of her looks.”
Let me now out myself as a bit of a Carolyn Bessette head myself.
Like many young women who spent their formative years growing up in New York City, Bessette-Kennedy was always on my internal mood board, but it wasn’t until the Covid-19 pandemic, bored in my apartment and dreaming about what I would wear when I could finally go out to dinner that my CBK fascination really began in earnest.
It started slow with her signature headband — a 1.375-inch-wide Charles J. Wahba tortoise acetate accessory Kennedy was said to have bought at the upscale New York City pharmacy C.O Bigelow and it was down the rabbit hole I went. The Selima Optique Aldo sunglasses? Check. The Cartier Tank watch? Check, but secondhand. The canvas L.L Bean Boat and Tote bag? Check. And yes, I saved up for a few years for a vintage Hermès Birkin — size 40.
Once I’d scored a few CBK items I wanted another, and another, and another. Sourcing her known designer items (Prada camel pencil skirt) or replicas of her more casual pieces (boot-cut brown corduroys) became a hobby. Who needs to learn pickleball when you can spend hours combing the internet for the Yohji Yamamoto double breasted coat Bessette-Kennedy wore to a Municipal Art Society Gala in 1997?
Carolyn brought me in as I studied grainy paparazzi photos of her walking in her New York City neighborhood of Tribeca in blue jeans, a white-shirt, and the perfect black overcoat or sitting on the subway in chinos and a black T-shirt, her trusty Hermès Birkin bag (on the train floor!) the only recognizable luxury label. A capsule wardrobe in muted action before that became a thing. One of the last style icons who you don’t find yourself wondering for a second if she was carrying a certain bag or wearing a certain dress because she was paid to or feel like there was a legion of publicists and stylists and brand managers behind her running the show. Simplicity defined her identity, but she was the blueprint.
As Sehnert put it: “Her simple and elegant style resonates now more than ever in the whirlwind of pop culture we’re currently in because she actually had a specific style.”
In a rare interview with Glamour magazine in 1992, Bessette-Kennedy herself described her style as “straightforward.” She went on to say, “I’m not comfortable with anything ornate. I like clean and understated looks. I love boots, jeans, blazers. I like very classic colors — black, navy, gray, and white. If I want to add some impact, I’ll do it with texture.”
Thanks to that specificity, designers have been playing out her influence on the runways for decades. Once you study enough images of CBK, it’s hard to look at The Row and think of the line as anything else but an homage that somehow became a $1 billion business.
Wynne for one, is still holding out hope that the final product does Bessette-Kennedy justice. “I know the show has a talented costume designer and expert consultants, and I’m confident they will pivot based on all the feedback. I personally can’t wait to watch the series and see the final product.”
So will I, of course, although I’m still working up to being nonchalant enough to put my Birkin on the floor of the subway instead of clutching onto it for dear life. But it’s that effortlessness that defines everything we think we know about her, and feels impossible to fully embody because the woman who did it first absolutely did it best—and did it for herself.
The post Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy Is More Than Just Her Iconic Style appeared first on Glamour.
