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When images taken on the set of the Disney+ series Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette were teased on social media in June, fans were adamant that the show had got the styling wrong. The fictionalised drama details the relationship between John F Kennedy Jr, then the world’s most eligible bachelor, and the fashion publicist Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, tracing their courtship and marriage, which was lived out under the scrutiny of the press.
“This is fashion murder,” wrote one user underneath a picture of Sarah Pidgeon, who plays Bessette Kennedy, and Paul Anthony Kelly, who depicts Kennedy Jr. Such was the outrage that the executive producer Ryan Murphy was forced to defend the styling as “a work in progress”, which led to him hiring a new costume designer, Rudy Mance, to focus on the historical precision. Nine months later, the internet has done a U-turn, with fans now rushing to emulate the couple’s on-screen and off-screen 90s looks. In the past week alone, searches for “Carolyn Bessette style” have increased by 150% on Google. Here are nine trends that the fans are championing.
Flip it and reverse it
Stroll down any high street and you’ll see the Love Story effect in action, with a noticeable rise in men wearing baseball caps backwards. It is the quickest and cheapest way to emulate Kennedy Jr, who was rarely seen without a Yankees cap or a Kangol flat cap purposefully styled backwards over his mop of black hair. On TikTok, there are photo montages dedicated to Kennedy Jr’s headwear, while users are documenting how they are transforming their partner’s style with the simple flip of a cap. “Fully support this journey,” reads a comment under a video that has been watched more than 1m times. “This is every boy I went to college with in 1994,” says another.
The white shirt
While attending a gala at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1999, Bessette Kennedy eschewed the traditional ballgown for a crisp white shirt tucked into a long black silk skirt. Twenty-seven years later, photos of that look are plastered all over Pinterest mood boards. A simple white button-down was also favoured by Kennedy Jr – and now male viewers trying to echo his look are snapping up similar cotton versions from preppy brands such as Ralph Lauren to wear with casual chinos or tailored trousers. They’re even starching their shirts to achieve his neat look – quite a feat, considering that three in 10 young adults don’t own an iron.
Rich people hair
Despite Bessette Kennedy’s former hair colourist describing Pidgeon’s blond hair as “too 2024”, salons are reporting more requests for “Love Story blond”. Harriet Muldoon, a blond-hair specialist at Larry King salon in London says that “soft, expensive-looking blond” is in demand, with customers bringing in reference photos of the fictional and the real Bessette Kennedy.
Muldoon describes the colour as “a warm, creamy, high-impact blond with a polished finish”, explaining that it is “glossy, dimensional and looks intentionally bright, rather than naturally sun-kissed”. She suggests asking a colourist for “a creamy, neutral-to-warm blond with brightness around the hairline, often called a face frame, and soft dimension through the lengths”. For those who already have blond hair and who would like to try a DIY approach, try a toner such as Glaze Supergloss in pearl blonde.
Bootcut Levi’s
Forget skinny or low-slung baggy jeans, the Bessette Kennedy clan are championing Levi’s vintage 517 style. The resale site Depop says that searches for the fit are up 67% month on month. Introduced as part of the brand’s menswear offering in 1969, the jeans are cut to be slim through the hips, with a distinctive 18.25in bootcut leg opening. The closest Levi’s match in womenswear is its “wedgie” bootcut jean, but most Bessette Kennedy fans are snapping up the original menswear’s version. Made of stiff denim, they have no stretch, so good luck sitting down.
The pharmacy headband
In the show, Bessette Kennedy is depicted flicking her long hair dramatically from side to side as she toils away in the Calvin Klein office. In real life, she regularly wore it scraped back in a low ponytail and topped off with a tortoiseshell headband. Measuring 1.375in, it didn’t take long for internet sleuths to track down an exact match. Bessette Kennedy’s band is from Charles Wahba, a New York accessories brand that she used to buy from the apothecary CO Bigelow in Greenwich Village and Zitomer, a 76-year-old pharmacy on Madison Avenue.
Charles Wahba doesn’t have a website, which has led to a surge of TikTokers documenting their pharmacy pilgrimages to secure the £30 accessory. For those outside the US, shopping platforms such as Etsy offer dupes.
Size-matters sunglasses
While Bessette Kennedy favoured the Aldo sunglasses from the New York eyewear brand Selima Optique, devout Love Story viewers have spotted that, in the show, Pidgeon wears the brand’s Carolyn style. The Aldo lenses measure 42mm, while the Carolyn’s are 48mm; according to Selima Optique, they were created thanks to “many Aldo fans asking for a slightly larger frame”. The sunglasses are handmade in New York and cost £398, but the brand is refusing to create a waiting list, despite record demand. Instead, customers have to wait up to three weeks to receive their order. Slow luxury and all that jazz.
The Walkman walks again
Kennedy Jr, who was rarely seen without his trusted portable cassette player and spongy headphones as he cycled or rollerbladed around New York, now has young people rooting around their parents’ cupboards trying to track down Sony Walkmans. The trend coincides with a rise in analogue hobbies, with sales of cassette tapes at their highest level since 2003.
Knot a bad idea
While neck ties have been making a comeback on the catwalk and the red carpet over the past year or so, Love Story has supercharged the trend. Now, gen Z is attempting the four-in-hand knot, while millennials are trying to refamiliarise themselves with an accessory that was once almost mandatory in the workplace. Ditching open collars, fans are channelling Kennedy Jr by scouring vintage and secondhand shops for 90s silk ties in deep colours such as russet and navy.
Office etiquette
Former Calvin Klein employees have taken to social media to confirm that, yes, as the show suggests, the fashion designer would only allow staff – including Bessette Kennedy – to use black paperclips. Cue the death of the silver paperclip. Stationery-cupboard fans are also getting excited over the fact that paperwork had to be presented in dark grey folders – but will a generation more accustomed to PDFs be able to use a printer?
