Alongside husband JFK Jr, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy was one half of America's great 1990s golden couple, before their untimely deaths. Now a new drama is set to explore her struggles in the spotlight – which had parallels with those of Princess Diana.
She never gave an official interview, there are only two recordings of her voice, amounting to less than half a minute of audio, and she died in 1999 at the age of just 33, having been in the public eye for no more than five years. Yet Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy – one half of one of America's most famous golden couples – is possibly even more celebrated now than she was during her tragically short life.
As the photogenic girlfriend and then wife of John F Kennedy Jr, she set fashions, her image was all over magazines and newspapers and she was compared to the UK's Princess Diana, yet she remained unknowable to the general public. Critics said she was haughty and distant. Friends said she was just unused to fame.
The Calvin Klein executive embodied the trend known as "quiet luxury" or "stealth wealth": neutral tones, no flashy logos or visible labels, understated elegance, minimalist glamour. TikTok videos offer advice on how to get her look. Instagram accounts with legions of followers worship her.She is also the subject of a new nine-part drama from Ryan Murphy, creator of American Horror Story and American Crime Story. The first season of his latest franchise Love Story is about the courtship and marriage of Carolyn and John F Kennedy Jr, the son of the former president and his wife Jackie. The show has already caused controversy. Jack Schlossberg, nephew of the late JFK Jr, criticised Murphy for "profiting off" his uncle's story.
Meticulous simplicity
Fans of Bessette were up in arms online over some test shots of actress Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn, and what they insisted were the wrong hair colour (Carolyn wore her hair in what her colourist called a "buttery blonde" colour), wrong accessories, wrong footwear, wrong everything. Author of 2023 book CBK: Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy: A Life in Fashion, Sunita Kumar Nair writes of her style: "Her mastery lay in the simplicity of her clothes: a clutch of carefully considered separates, meticulously fitted to a strict cluster of tonal hues." Crisp white shirts, loafers, acetate sunglasses, tortoiseshell headbands, bootcut Levi's 517s and long black coats were among her sartorial staples. She was also associated with high-end labels such as Yohji Yamamoto, Ralph Lauren, Prada and, of course, Calvin Klein.
Journalist Liz McNeil, co-author of 2024 book JFK Jr: An Intimate Oral Biography, tells the BBC: "Even now, almost 27 years later, Carolyn makes it look like everyone else is trying too hard. There was something about her which seemed like she wasn't trying to be anything other than herself. She had an amazing eye for lines and small touches that were hers alone, ie the gold mesh evening bag with the white button down and long black fishtail skirt. Cool beyond belief. She had an aesthetic all her own."However, her style evolved over the years. One of the images from the show that caused so much outrage was of Pidgeon as Carolyn wearing Converse. Instagrammers insisted she would never have worn the popular high-top sneakers but, in fact, she did. She dressed more casually before she was in the public eye. She sometimes favoured track pants. A natural brunette, she would let her hair air dry on the subway, giving it a tousled look. A friend described her as "more like a tomboy"
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