Featured image: FX / Disney Press
Following the premiere of the limited anthology series Love Story (directed by Ryan Murphy) on Disney+ earlier this February, show protagonists John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette have become favourites for a new generation. Almost 30 years after their real-life untimely passing, the show’s popularity has unleashed a new-found influence for Gen Z with America’s it-couple.
Starring Sarah Pidgeon and Paul Anthony Kelly, Love Story has taken social media by storm and now boasts the title as FX’s most-watched limited series. It follows America’s golden boy and NYC’s most eligible bachelor, JFK Jr, as he attempts to court Calvin Klein’s most prominent and influential publicist, Carolyn Bessette.
As the show approaches its season finale, people cannot help but be “obsessed with the way Carolyn Bessette Kennedy is presented as a person without a single flaw.” But how is 90s-style America inspiring young fashion for an audience who were not alive at the time of her passing?
As one fansite dedicated to Carolyn Bessette Kennedy writes: “You can’t buy CBK’s essence. But you can study it.” Carolyn has been a fascination for decades; her ability to marry into one of the world’s most political, idealised families and yet still keep her life covert from America’s grueling press has led her to become one of the most spectral public figures. Tabloids reeled around her entire being, yet she was one to not succumb to their aggravations. The unattainability of her life was something that a lot of the public admired, but she felt like a member of New York’s community: quiet, effortless and witty.
The mystique of CBK has resurfaced at a time when our lives are increasingly transparent. The digital natives of Gen Z have never known a world without the internet, and continue to be influenced by the need for algorithmic validation. TikTok especially has taken on the role of integrating the “CBK style” into mainstream spaces, with #chic and #carolynbessette having a combined post count of around 1 million.
Ironically, while CBK had her own style and a “refusal to change it for anyone else”, this youth-led appreciation for her seems to overlook what made her admirable in the first place. Her subtle impact on fashion is all about mindset: the minimal jewellery – not omitting her wedding band – and a less-is-more approach to throwing together an outfit. She was the epitome and personification of minimalistic fashion – completely her own person, with her own timeless take on attentive style. Dissecting her entirely and trying to profit from capturing her in a trend, and the further people move away from this idea, we will only lose the entire meaning of what made her so spectacular.
Posts ranging from outfit inspirations to imitations of Pidgeon’s portrayal of Bessette have brought up plenty of heated discourse. Long-term fans have laid out their thoughts that CBK should remain a true enigma. As one fan wrote: “Thinking about how CBK’s style is reduced to 90s minimalism by people who are just starting to get familiar with her game.”
This constant need for younger adults to replicate someone through a cultural shorthand, is rooted in nostalgia.
Coolness cannot be fabricated from a mainstream, plural weave of identity. If we have learned anything from Love Story’s breakthrough and tragic end-point, it is that being indifferent is refreshing, but it isn’t something to be mindlessly imitated.
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