Nicole Nigro, a 24-year-old software engineer in Brooklyn, was not yet born when a plane crash killed John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette on July 16, 1999.
But Ms. Bessette-Kennedy was at the top of Ms. Nigro’s mind on Friday when she went to Zitomer, an upscale pharmacy on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, looking for a headband she saw in TikTok videos. Specifically, a tortoiseshell headband that is a 1.375 inches wide, costs $35 and has been linked to Ms. Bessette-Kennedy because she was photographed wearing it multiple times before she died at 33.
In the 25 years since, Ms. Bessette-Kennedy, a former publicist at Calvin Klein, has for many people functioned as a posthumous fashion influencer. Some of them, like Ms. Nigro, learned about her through social media posts highlighting Ms. Bessette-Kennedy’s preference for minimal clothing. (“Simple and timeless,” as Ms. Nigro put it.)
But unlike Ms. Bessette-Kennedy’s clothes from designer labels like Yohji Yamamoto and Prada — some of which are currently on auction at Sotheby’s — the tortoiseshell headbands offer an accessible way to emulate her style. They have been branded the “CBK Headband” online and by some fashion publications, a term that is used to describe both the exact style worn by Ms. Bessette-Kennedy and other tortoiseshell headbands of varying widths, colors and makers.
The 1.375-inch-wide headbands she wore are made by Charles J. Wahba, a label founded in New York City in 1959. Handmade in France of acetate, its headbands can fit tightly, but are said to mold to the shape of a wearer’s head. They are sold at other luxurious pharmacies, including C.O. Bigelow in Greenwich Village, where Ms. Bessette-Kennedy is said to have bought her headbands.
But no store has sold them longer than Zitomer, where Ms. Bessette-Kennedy is said to have shopped as well (for shampoo and scrunchies). The nearly 75-year-old pharmacy, which is known for its extensive selection of hair accessories, has carried the label’s headbands, claw clips and barrettes since 1976.
On the day that Ms. Nigro visited Zitomer to find a headband, Shreya Bhide, 28, also stopped by to look for one. “It was what — like one century, a half a century ago?” Ms. Bhide, a software engineer in San Jose, Calif., said of the era when Ms. Bessette-Kennedy wore the accessory.
While only a quarter century ago, it was a time before people’s daily lives were documented online. Photos taken of Ms. Bessette-Kennedy and articles written about her before she died are some of the only ways to get a peek at her life. That may be part of her allure among younger people, said Mimi Stillman, a 28-year-old freelance video producer in Columbus, Ohio.
“I’m not old enough to recall her, but I think it’s so interesting her aura has transcended to my generation,” said Ms. Stillman, who bought a Wahba headband at Zitomer in July and documented the purchase in a TikTok video. “There are no new photos; I would like to know more about her.”
This year, Zitomer has tripled its inventory of Wahba hair products, partly because of the headband’s popularity, said Sharon Sternheim, the pharmacy’s owner. Ms. Sternheim added that she has “never seen such a young crowd coming into the store.” She estimated that lately, more than half of its weekend customers had been under 40.
Joey Wahba, who runs the hair accessories label started by and named for his father, said the surge of interest in its headband associated with Ms. Bessette-Kennedy had resulted in an uptick in sales: The company has sold some 10,000 this year, about 10 times more than it did in 2023. In addition to pharmacies like Zitomer and C.O. Bigelow, Wahba items are sold at some 80 locations nationwide, including hair salons. The company itself does not sell items online, however — it doesn’t have a website or any social media accounts.
“It’s amazing she became someone that today’s generation admires,” Mr. Wahba said of Ms. Bessette-Kennedy.
Those admirers include the actress Annabelle Dexter-Jones, 38, who on a recent phone call recalled glimpsing Ms. Bessette-Kennedy in the crowd at the Calvin Klein fashion shows that Ms. Dexter-Jones attended as a child with her mother, Ann Dexter-Jones, a jewelry designer.
Ms. Dexter-Jones, who grew up in New York and is a longtime Zitomer customer, said she has purchased dozens of tortoiseshell headbands at the pharmacy, including Wahba styles. She added that Ms. Bessette-Kennedy’s appearance partly informed that of Naomi Pierce, the publishing heiress Ms. Dexter-Jones played on HBO’s “Succession.”
“I think her style is timeless and Zitomer is timeless and that’s what is so appealing about those headbands,” she said.
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