CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion

"MY NAME IS JOHN KENNEDY, AND I AM THE MAN WHO IS ACCOMPANYING CAROLYN BESSETTE TO MILAN. I AM HONORED TO TELL YOU SHE IS MY WIFE." —JOHN F. KENNEDY JR. (WWD magazine, July 1999)

Seemingly measured and thoughtful in her fashion life, color actually had Carolyn’s full attention. Her wardrobe was a deliberate “absence of color,” a term coined by fashion designer Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel when explaining the absolute beauty in black and white. Carolyn had once advised a former Calvin Klein colleague that if you can’t afford expensive fabrics or designs then you should stick to black. She even spoke about color during her brief interview with Glamour magazine in 1992, saying, “I like very classic colors, black, navy, grey and white. If I want to add some impact, I’ll do it with texture.” She didn’t mention beige though. Countless times, however, she chose to wear it in the form of pants, skirts, dresses, and coats while walking her dog Friday, running errands, or attending evening events, but she never publicly mentioned her love of the color. Privately, according to designer Stephan Janson, she expressed her preference for black and shades of brown while shopping for her Milan trip in 1997. 

There can be no doubt that beige seemed to be the color she chose to break and redirect her stream of black consciousness. At Calvin Klein, where Carolyn worked from 1989 to 1996, beige and all shades thereof—brown, khaki, camel, and ecru—were considered a color standard for the house. Calvin Klein archivist Jessica Barber says that most people associate black with the brand; she reasons this was because most leading fashion photography was being shot in monochrome leading to the mistaken color conclusion. The designer went as far as owning a Mercedes in brown; his stores all reflected similar shades, a natural, organic side to his vision. Beige as a color has long been synonymous with heritage, think a Burberry trench coat or riding jodhpurs. The color evolved from army camouflage to function for aviator Amelia Earhart, and by the time Richard Avedon lensed model Veruschka in 1968 wearing a beige YSL safari jacket complete with dagger and rifle, the color had accrued plenty of “maverick/explorer” connotations to it. 

Camouflage, adventure, and heritage are solid tags for beige and its variations. Carolyn never wore a full look in the color, but her equation of black plus beige or camel was a regular feature for her. It was significant enough for it to be chosen at her formal press introduction as the new Mrs. John Kennedy. She chose Prada, wearing a full look including runway model hair. In that moment, she was a picture of completeness, an authority, as her own woman who happened to marry a Kennedy. She is the one you are looking at, not John. It became a memorable image that she knew would be shared globally. Her colleagues at Calvin Klein were not surprised by the choice, affirming that everyone was wearing Prada or Calvin Klein in the office at the time. She stuck to what she knew and didn’t go off-piste for her first photo op. Just as Carolyn had opined on the color black and its ability to disguise cheap fabric, beige is the opposite. The color relies solely on garment construction and the silhouette it creates. Tacky textiles, flashy patterns, cheap textures, or insipid design elements do not belong to the house of beige; it is the epitome of luxury, and Carolyn, ever the keen curator of her image, knew that.

Wayne Scot Lukas (Celebrity fashion stylist): "Carolyn was larger than life. She made you feel like everything—she was like your big sister, your gay best friend. She would put pieces together in this “no fucks given” kind of way; it was incredibly sexy. When I first met her, she had this California girl look: curves, hair that tumbled down or was wrapped in a messy bun. She was just beautiful; she sucked the air out of any room she was in. She had a warm relationship with everyone. She would get close when she was talking to you—a master manipulatorbut you didn’t mind it happening to you. Carolyn created her looks so simply, but without her confidence and inner strength I feel like they would have been nothing. She dressed from the inside out and that’s what made her different. For the Met Gala in 1994 she wears this black slip dress; that’s it. For her, it was all in the details. She made fashion real and accessible, and no one could do sexy and pretty at the same time like her, no one. If she wore a CK wrap dress she would make it sit low and loosely tie it. Look at the tulle gloves she wore for her wedding—that’s Carolyn. The long tight boots with a long tailored coat—that’s Carolyn. You are either gorgeous or a master of minimalist style but usually not both unless you are her. She didn’t just break the rules of fashion minimalism. She rewrote them."

Sasha Chermayeff (Close friend of John Jr.): "We were in Martha’s Vineyard, and I was walking into the bedroom because John wanted to show me something. Carolyn happened to be lying there half asleep, curled up, her hair and face all crumpled up. She looked up and smiled at me—like this sleepy little kid, but innocent and beautiful at the same time. I couldn’t help it, and I breathlessly said, “Carolyn you are incredible.” John followed my stare, and said, “I know, she looks like that all the time.” I mean, when I remember that scene, she was like a reclining Velázquez, just so utterly beautiful, beyond words, almost unreal. Let’s not forget her inner beauty as well. My children found her eternally attractive."

In 1992, W magazine described twenty-five-year-old Carolyn as someone “with mannequin proportions,” and as a “sultry blue-eyed beauty” who sees herself as “merely a physically blessed real person, sort of.” She was just promoted to the Collection position at Calvin Klein at the time. She revealed how she decided against pursuing a career in teaching despite majoring in elementary education in college. “At the time, I felt a little underdeveloped myself to be completely responsible for twenty-five other people’s children, and to a large extent, I felt it wouldn’t be provocative enough for me.” The fairy tale of New York usually consists of the protagonist, a small towner, fervently dreaming of a better, starry life, packing their bags, taking the quantum leap and heading to the Big Apple. As her colleague Julie Muszynski remembers, “black leggings with a big red sweater—she could have worn a sack and it would look good on her.” Sue Sartor shared an office with Carolyn for a brief time and remembers “a super smart, stylish, compassionate, and very funny girl. She was always encouraging to everyone. I would ask her what pieces to spend my clothing allowance on, and she would always advise on the ones that would last, design and trend wise; she was a master stylist even then.”

Another staffer remembers that the designers in Zack Carr’s office wore Comme des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto most of the time, an early brush for Carolyn with the Japanese avant-garde designers. Tony Melillo, a friend of Carolyn and Kelly Klein, remembers “people admiring her from day one. Calvin used her just like Kelly as a muse; he looked to them both to understand what was good and bad. As an insider I think he really enjoyed seeing Carolyn in her natural state—coming into the office, going out, different parts of her but still the same girl.” Clare Waight Keller, the former designer at Givenchy who started her career at Calvin Klein, recalls that Carolyn “would come into the office like she just rolled out of bed, and then when she had meetings, she would transform herself from this super cool street casual to the most elegant thing you have ever seen.”

Carolyn’s people, her friends and colleagues, echoed similar adjectives, smart, feisty, a force, kind, complex, witty, graceful, beautiful, and of course stylish; brush strokes used to paint a picture of their Carolyn, to us. She was a woman very much in her own right, the real deal, her sartorial choices were merely a mirror of this inner assuredness. A flicker of Carolyn passed my mind, her getting ready for an event; her Yohji Yamamoto armor attire in place, putting on her red lipstick to face the pack of photographers outside, a cacophony of shutters and flashing lights. It occurred to me that she wasn’t reclaiming her power in front of the cameras or to the public, she never needed too, she always had it. —"CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion" (2023) by Sunita Kumar Nair