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Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: Why biopic of 1990s US fashion favourite has enraged her fans
The Guardian
|June 21, 2025
In fashion, only the real favourites have acronyms. See SJP for Sarah Jessica Parker, ALT for the late fashion editor André Leon Talley and - particularly relevant right now - CBK for Carolyn Bessette Kennedy.
The wife of John F Kennedy Jr, who along with her husband and sister died in a plane crash in 1999, is sometimes seen as the US's answer to Princess Diana. Like Diana, she was loved for her style, which was dubbed minimalist, chic or "quiet luxury". Instagram is full of accounts posting archive images of her, while influential brands such as The Row, Toteme and Gabriela Hearst design clothes that channel her approach to dressing.
The full extent of the deification became clear this week when images of the actor Sarah Pidgeon as Bessette Kennedy in Ryan Murphy's forthcoming Kennedys biopic American Love Story were seen for the first time.
In one image on Murphy's Instagram, Pidgeon is pictured in a rumpled brown coat, cropped trousers and black polo neck, with a Birkin bag, and bright blond hair, while on-set images show her in a satin midiskirt, Converse and leathery jacket. There was an immediate reaction. "This is fashion murder," one person wrote below the Murphy post. Another wrote: "Whoever styled cbk needs to be fired."
This story is from the June 21, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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