Ryan Murphy’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette aired earlier this month, and the reception has been mixed—unsurprising, considering the highly documented nature of the Bessette Kennedy romance. Bessette-Kennedy, specifically, has been a canon style icon for minimalist women for decades, showing up on countless mood boards, Pinterest folders, and Instagram inspiration accounts since such apps were born.
When the first images came out from Love Story, chemistry tests and light tests revealed a bleached-blonde Sarah Pidgeon as Bessette and an overly buttoned up Paul Anthony Kelly as Kennedy Jr., and the internet went into an uproar. The consensus was that the woman who is best known for looking highly expensive in even the most casual, understated clothing, looked…cheap.
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Plenty of these worries were put to rest when Ryan Murphy confirmed to Puck that these would not be final looks, and that their last-minute decision to bring costume designer Rudy Mance (of Monster, American Fiction, and The Alienist) on would secure Bessette’s fashion legacy as intended. It is clear that Mance has done a significant amount of research to get Pidgeon’s character to the place Bessette once was. There are authentic archival looks and pieces that have been sourced directly from personal collections.There are fashion moments referencing many of the pieces that made Bessette-Kennedy’s wardrobe so unique and iconic in the first place.
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Mance tracked down the exact black long sleeved shirt Bessette-Kennedy wore in one of her famous paparazzi shots, and replicated the way the Calvin Klein publicist used to wrap her cardigans around her neck like a scarf. But why does it still not feel quite right?
Naturally, not all of the wardrobing was going to be exact, but the overall feel of the series just doesn’t radiate the same energy that the sparing archive of images we have of the couple does.
In a 2025 British GQ piece about what’s missing from Kelly’s wardrobe in the show, Mahalia Chang writes: “What made his style so enduring and so mind-numblingly cool 30 years later are the freaky details.” It feels apt to argue the same about Pidgeon’s wardrobing for Bessette-Kennedy.
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The focal point of Bessette-Kennedy’s style was this sense of ease and refinement, but there was always something a little “off” that brought her from minimalist fashion girl to cool fashion girl. Her wispy blonde hair was air dried, but not in the “slept in a braid” manner it is on the show. In old images, it is clear that whatever flyaways Bessette-Kennedy has are a product of the weather, not of her pulling tendrils out in the way Pidgeon’s updos often give away on screen. This purposeful messiness instead of real-life messiness is where Love Story fails to capture Bessette-Kennedy’s legacy. Her disjoined, at times “messy,” style is what made her so alluring. On screen, under the "Netflix lighting” of Murphy’s production, she’s simply too buttoned up—too polished and neat to foster any real sense of chemistry or stylistic effortlessness. It’s not that the wardrobes feel inaccurate—it just feels inauthentic.The wash of a jean is too new looking, a leather bag feels as though it’s been freshly plucked off the shelf at Nordstrom—same with her loafers in the early episodes.Velvet opera gloves are swapped out for too-shiny satin.
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Courtesy of FX
Courtesy of FX
Any of the self-assured confidence that Bessette-Kennedy appeared to possess in real life is reduced, on screen, to a character who makes it hard to believe she dressed herself. Ultimately, this is what Love Story gets wrong about Bessette-Kennedy’s looks: historical accuracy or authentic archival pieces are no match for instinct.
