CBK, my eternal inspiration
I passed by what was once Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and John F Kennedy Jnr’s Tribeca apartment while spending time in leafy autumnal New York this month. The grey steel doors that were a backdrop to so many famous photos of the stylish young couple were still hauntingly unchanged. Many times I’ve had coffee in their regular 1990s haunt, Bubby’s restaurant – just around the corner, with its legendary green façade, it’s still buzzing with frenetic energy today.
I first saw her in 1996. As a student chasing my dream of becoming a journalist, I spotted her in a magazine shortly after she exchanged wedding vows with John F Kennedy Jnr during a small ceremony at the First African Baptist Church, Cumberland
Island, a mile off the Georgia coast.
The simple cowl-neck silk slip wedding dress by Narciso Rodriguez she wore that September day left a huge impression on me. Every bride I had known wore the exact opposite – big and flouncy. There was something so rare and beautiful about her elegant simplicity that I was captivated.
A week later the couple were photographed again outside those grey doors. Her new husband was asking photographers to give them space to adjust to newly married life. Carolyn wore a black V-neck sweater, camel midi skirt, tan boots and a black bag, all by Prada. So simple but so considered. As Vanessa Friedman wrote in The New York Times last month,
‘It’s little wonder that as fascination with the 1990s reaches a new pitch, CBK has emerged as the ghost influencer of the season.’ I recently found myself buying a similar camel skirt from Massimo Dutti’s new autumn/winter collection. Last year Prada released the bag I’m carrying here, calling it The Carolyn in a knowing nod to her style power.
Although she died in 1999 at just 33, when a small plane she was in, piloted by her husband and also carrying her sister, crashed into the ocean, killing all three, as Friedman says, ‘She will never age, get Botox, post an unthinking comment on social media, get messy – or change her style.’
This month sees the publication of a new book, CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy – A Life in Fashion, by Sunita Kumar Nair, which contains interviews with fashion figures and photographers. I’m hoping it will unlock some of the mysteries that still surround her. CBK never gave interviews or glimpses into her world as Mrs Kennedy. Few knew the real woman, but she managed, like no other, to epitomise timeless style. It would be fascinating to know today what she thought of that.