023 The World's most moodboarded woman
Those CBK pics, constructed personalities and two books to make you really see humanity.
What we all think we look like when we wear this outfit!
Who knew such a furore could be caused by one dead looking Birkin and a slip skirt that was definitely bought on the high street! Of course I’m talking about the test shots released of Ryan Murphy, King of Camp’s new series about John F. Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, the world’s most moodboarded woman. Apart from maybe Joan Didion, in front of that Corvette specifically.
But actually I did know it would cause a stir because the second I saw them on Instagram I sent them to my colleague Jonah - my absolute brain box authority on fashion and thank god he wrote about it! - because I was aghast. I could see that Lauren Santo Domingo, founder of Moda Operandi, creative director of Tiffany & Co.’s home category and one of the world’s chicest women had already commented that these costumes weren’t right. And Santo Domingo knows because as she once told me in an interview, she grew up in the same area as Bessette Kennedy and she was absolutely it already then. Once in high school Santo Domingo got a train to New York’s Canal street to buy the exact perfume that Bessette Kennedy was rumoured to wear.
“I remember when I was in high school we heard stories that she would go to Canal Street and pick up this patchouli fragrance from this street vendor, and so the second I was old enough I was taking the train into the city and finding the same perfume, even before she was famous. I think she always had that sort of It factor,” she told me.
I was thinking about this as I truffled up every skerrick of commentary about how wrong the clothes were this week - where was the vintage Yohji! The Prada shoes! The hair does not have buttery chunks! In my career I must have written at least five articles about Bessette Kennedy, including interviewing the author of CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, A Life in Fashion. I was invested!
This was the woman whose style was described as ‘effortful effortlessness,’ she did meaningful minimalism and ‘throwaway chic.’ Michael Kors once described her as the ‘perfect image of the American girl.’ According to Lauren Sherman of Puck, someone she knows once saw a moodboard at The Row which was full of pictures of Bessette Kennedy. Ralph Lauren reportedly told his designers to think of her as their muse.
(As a side-note I am obsessed with Ryan Murphy calling up Sherman to let her know that he definitely has bought a lot of the right clothes for the show! Doth he protest too much!?).
In any case, all of these things are things that have been said about Bessette Kennedy, thought about her, projected onto her. There’s barely any interview recordings of her speaking in her too short life. As the recent biography of Bessette Kennedy, Once Upon a Time (absolutely gobbled this up too) details, she was very private and struggled with the invasion of her personal life that was the side effect of marrying into American royalty. Her mystery, in these oversharing times, is of course part of the allure. As the inimitable Robin Givhan once wrote for The Washington Post, "The couple died before the era of Instagram and Twitter, back when personal lives were something that people still sought to protect rather than curate and then monetise. The couple died when discretion was admirable, before it became quaint and then vaguely obsolete."
Privacy is making a comeback as we all realise what we’ve willingly handed over. As Phoebe Philo (whose clothes Bessette Kennedy would have loved) once said, the chicest thing is to not be on Google!
This is something that Sunita Kumar Nair, the author of CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, a Life In Fashion told me she was keenly aware of in documenting her fashion.
“Carolyn was a super-private person and I wanted to maintain that, and hear how she chose to present her persona through her clothes, that is what CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy A Life in Fashion is about. It’s a chance for the fashion world to decipher what she stood for from a fashion perspective. Carolyn wanted to remain mysterious and that is the most important thing she managed to maintain.”
But the thing is, even if the clothes were exactly right, we still can’t really capture the essence of Bessette Kennedy. We’re trying to distill an entire captivating person just by what she wore. Even if we did manage to track down her exact shoe or her exact scent. The question to ask is, well, why do we need to quite so badly?
Speaking of projecting, I really loved Julianne Moore in Sirens - mostly for her goddess gowns in a sea of Lily Pulitzer fever dreams. Preppy style is a minefield of trip-ups, the only way to survive is to be above it all and not buy in!
Julianne Moore in Sirens. Picture: Netflix. Dress: The Row!
On the The Run-Through with Vogue Podcast Moore described her character as a “constructed personality.” More than ever I’m thinking this is the only way to get ahead. Well, until your time runs out!
And my god, her jewellery. Also the aforementioned wonderful Jonah reminded me of Moore’s incredibly risqué Bulgari campaigns from the early aughts that were TOO SEXY for St Marks Square in Venice.
I’ve finally finished my biography of Bunny Mellon, another current obsession and then I went down a rabbit hole on her gardens thanks to AD.
This is the garden at her Antigua home.
Picture: Roger Foley
Here is a sentence I enjoyed this week: “Summer is a season ripe for scandal; people tend to be overheated and understimulated, looking to mist their crisping minds with idle gossip.”
I saw the exhibition when I was in New York in April and felt an affinity with Madame X! Also, what a profile.
It’s from The New Yorker in a bit about the Singer Sargent exhibition currently on at the Met Museum. Or specifically it’s about l’scandal surrounding Sargent - an ambitious American in Paris (is there any other kind?) whose painting of ‘Madame X’ scandalised the city of love when it debuted in Paris in 1884. So much so that Sargent painted that wanton strap slipping down her shoulder back on and the subject, American beauty, alleged seductress and another total It-Girl Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau was said to have removed all mirrors from her house. Now of course the portrait is the gem of the Met. Madame X now represents an appealing saucy opulence and the irresistible idea of reinventing yourself that seems right for now when every party favour is a cigarette lighter and the mood for the Northern Hemisphere summer is, to quote Leandra Medine on the Fashion People podcast, an ‘homage to Italian tackiness.”
Loved this quote in the exhibition too: “Of all the undressed women, the only interesting one is by Mr. Sargent.” Joséphin Péladan. L’Artiste, June 1884.
Quite!
Books
I have been so busy these past few weeks so here is a quick list of the pitifully few books I have read of late.
The Examined Life by psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz which was almost like a balm in its generous observations of people and why we behave the way we do.
Butter by Asako Yuzuki - I haven’t finished this yet because UNBEARABLY I left it behind in my Kyoto hotel room this week (when I tell you it was a joy to be reading a book set in Japan while I was actually in Japan!). But I can’t wait to read the last few chapters. Upsettingly this will have to be on my phone as I can’t buy the same book twice and I’m worried I’ll have to wait too long at the library.
The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich. Like The Examined Life this is also an insight into why people behave the way though they do, only less loneliness-fixing.
Annie xx