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Two days ago, I saw photos of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy I haven’t seen before—a rarity in this age of CBK obsession, particularly fueled by Ryan Murphy’s American Love Story. An Instagram carousel posted by @thetwomrs showed her in an array of ensembles by one of her favorite designers, Yohji Yamamoto. The photos came with an interview with Allen Siu who worked at the Yohji store when she was shopping there. Together, they give us a little window into a real person’s encounter with the new princess of Camelot—now considered more an emblem of taste than an actual person—detailing both Bessette Kennedy’s relationship with the brand and her shopping habits.
“I’d say Carolyn first started coming into the boutique in 1996,” Sui wrote (1996 is also the year she married JFK Jr.). “It was very natural for Carolyn to come in, she was like a fixture in our store. She came in about every 2 months or so.”
We got in touch with the founder of the account, who prefers to remain anonymous, about why she ran the interview. In general, she sets about to right the wrongs about both Bessette Kennedy and her mother-in-law Jackie O-Nassis, deep-diving into decades-old magazines and photo archives to get as close to the truth as she can. She connected with Siu after an interview with stylist Wayne Scot Lukas—Sui is a friend of a friend of his. They wanted to find someone who was actually on the floor of the store when Carolyn was shopping—no hearsay.
Sui doesn’t remember her first purchase. He does, however, remember her go-to’s: “She stuck to the classic three-button gabardine jacket and long pencil skirt in black. She picked black T-shirt’s or a white shirt to go underneath. She never picked anything transparent because it revealed too much in photographs.”
He goes on to muse about Bessette Kennedy’s love affair with Yohji Yamamoto’s clothes. “She loved Yamamoto for its simplicity and structured fit,” wrote Sui. Berated by paparazzi, Bessette Kennedy rumoredly attempted to create a perfect facade, often through her clothing. Today, she’s remembered for great white T-shirts and blue jeans—but her style was so much more than that. These photos show her inclination towards a Japanese designer with a penchant for odd shapes and perverse fabrics—and her dedication and love of obtaining those pieces.
We’ve seen the jacket with a million tiny buttons she wore with white and black column skirts (I even tried to recreate it for my first day working at Bazaar). We haven’t seen her in the black ruched tank dress from Yamamoto’s Spring ‘98 collection—a lovely contrast to her no-makeup-makeup and slick blonde bun. Or the sculptural skirt suit from his fall ‘97 collection. It’s proof she liked a little more creativity in clothing than she’s often given credit for.
“She could have worn anything,” says @thetwomrs, of CBK’s evident sartorial intention. And despite the barrage of content around the fashion icon, that relationship with Yamamoto isn’t glorified enough. “Maybe everybody picked up on the jeans and the white T-shirt or crisp, white shirt, but we weren’t wearing Yohji in LA where I grew up.”
There’s been a great deal of contention around the style of her fictional portrayal, but it’s easy to get lost in the expansive, sometimes reductive dialogue around the girl on everyone’s moodboard. It’s refreshing to be reminded by someone who was really there just how good that elusive style really was.
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