My 90s Icon - Carolyn Bessette

Pondering 90s fashion and it occurred to me that Carolyn Bessette Kennedy has been more influential on my style than probably anyone else. To me she epitomizes everything I loved about style in the 90s - and style in general, come to think of it ... an underdone polish, pared down palette and simplicity of pieces that just worked every time. Nothing showy and yet she stole centre stage. I was just looking at pictures of her and couldn't find a single look I would not wear happily emulate today. She was truly timeless in her style.

Interesting in a US election year to ponder what the political landscape might look like had that fateful day never happened. John Jr. would have been 56 this year ... a good age to throw one's hat in the ring?

Anyone else - who was one of your definitive style role models? Or 90s favorites?

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8 years ago

goldenpig

(website)

Veteran

Love her clean fresh style. Yes, too bad she and JFK Jr. died. They had so much class!

I can totally see the influence on your style and I love your sleek looks too!

Anonymous

I really admired her look too. She was so beautiful and elegant.

I did a google search on her just now. It's interesting because I think you would classify many of her pants as high-rise cropped flares. And quite baggy. And a bit ill-fitting in the crotch. I think these were the days before stretch was added to jeans.
I don't remember pants being that baggy in the 90's, but I think they must have been.

I don't really have any 90's favourites. I do like Jennifer Aniston now though.

I didn't wear baggy pants on the '90s.

Colette

I'm with you, I love her style, so simple and elegant. I pin every one of her outfits that I see. I recently came across this picture of her wearing cropped flairs that I want to try.

RoseandJoan

I was a teen during the 90's and loved Winona Ryder's style, I loved how thrown together her style could be, the slouch and the huge dose of vintage https://www.google.co.uk/searc.....38;bih=529

Mac

Yes, Carolyn's clothing style was always on point; she had an excellent eye. I saw her a few times IRL, too. Certainly, being an inverted triangle, 6-foot bleach blonde made her stand out as much as her fashion sense.

I adored her. She would have been a huge influence on fashion if she hadn't tragically died so young.

I've always admired Kate Moss's unique style, too.

No fashion icons. I just recently bought a book that features pictures of various icons though the previous century. I am very much looking forward to looking at the pictures. Perhaps I will find my style icon in the book.

Sal

She did have great taste, I loved her wedding dress and took a picture of it along to my dressmaker who tactfully pointed out you needed to be her shape to get away with it....in the end I wore something a little like Brooke Shields when she married Andre Agassi- which suited me better!

In the 90s I did admire Gwyneth Paltrow's style - in Sliding Doors, and I had the haircut too.

Style Fan

She definitely did have a great style. I can see her influence on you. Now I am influenced by Jennifer Aniston. Hair, clothes, make up. I have bought the exact same clothes as her. I have bangs though. I don't like the way I look without bangs.

Helena

Jennifer aniston is probably #2 on my list!! she is the goddess of the ffbo/uniform dressing, as well as updating your whole look with a new style of jeans.

Jaime

Interesting TG. I always admired CB's style but JA doesn't really do anything for me style wise.

rachylou

Still looks good, maybe even better now in retrospect.

The 90s are a lost decade for me. Nothing about it stands out in my head...

Sally

Yeah I do like the way Jennifer Aniston styles her jeans but I prefer her look nowadays rather than the 90s.

viva

It's funny. Carolyn Bessette is from the area where I grew up. She was born 3 years after me but we went to the same high school.

To me, she has a VERY familiar look of a certain kind of Connecticut girl -- the beautiful ones who had an incredible ease about them and all the social successes that come with that.

I was not one of those girls. While I love the look in some ways, I think I purposely cultivated a different look once I left high school, and even now into adulthood like to have some edge or twist on the classic -- probably as a result of not being a part of this genetically and socially dominant set.

Wow .... TMI? sorry if I got too deep there. I know it's just clothing, but then again, maybe it's not.

Viva, that is interesting ... Not tmi at all. She definitely represents a very rarified world; perhaps that's the appeal of that look to me, as I was not a part of that set either. I just finished reading a great fun book "true prep" and the author talks about the exclusiveness of the prep school club but also how passé that exclusivism is. I hope it's becoming true!

I agree, TG.

And I have to add that she is beautiful and I always feel such sadness when I see pictures of her. (I never knew her, I should add.) Whenever I see pictures of her, I am transported back to exactly where I was -- on a beach in Newcastle, NH, with my young daughters -- when I ran into a friend who told me their plane had gone down. It's impossible for me to untangle all of those things -- the rarified life, my sensitive high school nature, their tragic end, her fashion icon status -- when I think of CB.

Viva, TG - that may be why I feel CB's look is better now than then.

LaPed

As a child of the 90s, I can think of a lot of influences, though no direct icons fashion-wise. Kathleen Hanna and the whole Riot Grrrl scene. Ani DiFranco and Sinead O'Connor. Courtney Love. I have a real soft spot for the 90s, and how 70s/80s punk/new wave/no wave styles evolved into grunge and its variants. Oh gosh, not to mention ska. Those ska kids rocked some amazing looks.

I think the angry/rebel girl really came into her own in the 90s. Third-wave feminism came at style and sexuality from a very different angle than second-wave feminism (from the bra-burning 60s to the power suits of the 80s, all of which I have a hard time identifying with on a personal level, though I get it historically), and that's left a pretty lasting mark on me, more than any one person.

RoseandJoan, I've always loved Winona Ryder's style, too.

Viva -- your associations with Carolyn Bessette are exactly what come to mind for me too (half of my family is from Greenwich CT). Beautiful, effortless, and oozing privilege -- it's that very particular sort of Long Island aristocratic look, and she did execute it very well.

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