Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s Timeless Style Is Inspiring a ‘Quiet Luxury’ Revival
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The late Carolyn Bessette is surging to the top of the pop culture zeitgeist again and her classic style is a part of the conversation.
Ryan Murphy’s upcoming series, American Love Story, featuring her love story with John F. Kennedy Jr., might have been the catalyst for the resurgence. Still, it’s Bessette’s fashion icon status that is making everyone take a deeper dive into her life again.
TikTok is pushing the Bessette style narrative again as beauty and style mavens flock to the West Village in Manhattan to scoop up Charles J. Wahba tortoise-shell headbands sold at C.O. Bigelow pharmacy. It may seem like a simple accessory to some, but it’s Bessette’s relatable style that makes sense in a very expensive 2025 world.
“Carolyn represents this chic, quiet luxury style, I think many women want to emulate but feel they can’t afford. So, the headbands provide an affordable and accessible way to participate,” influencer Beverly Hart explained to The New York Post.
Still, Bessette’s fashion voice developed as a reaction to life in the public eye instead of a carefully curated image in the press. The 2024 biography, Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy by Elizabeth Beller, spoke to friends who dismissed the idea that Bessette was obsessed with her wardrobe.
Pal Michelle Kessler thought Bessette would laugh at her “fashion icon” description. “She was trying to be nothing of the sort. Carolyn was trying to have an interesting life and go about her day without interruption,” Kessler said.
The 2023 book, CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion by Sunita Kumar Nair, shared a similar philosophy about JFK Jr.’s wife. “She didn’t seek fame but was carved in a certain light, a light she sometimes enjoyed but mostly eschewed, rarely speaking to the press. Instead, she used fashion as a vehicle for communication — at times to thwart the insatiable camera lens but mostly thriving in her chosen ensemble,” Nair wrote in the book.
Instead of Chanel and Christian Dior, Bessette chose “the understated, tailored, and soft-yet-structured Calvin Klein, Prada, and Yohji Yamamoto garments,” as noted by The Cut — and it’s why fans were so critical of Murphy showing off the first look of actors Paul Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon as the dynamic duo. Their styling has to be exactly right because the public’s memories of the iconic couple are frozen in time.
“I think if she was alive today, she would still want to be a mystery, but fashion is where she showed herself,” Bessette’s former Calvin Klein coworker Stormy Stokes said in Nair’s book. “It was the part she was happy to display.”
Before you go, click here to see all the best pictures of JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette.