The Carolyn Bessette Kennedy Formula That Ryan Murphy's Show Completely Missed

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First-look photos from Ryan Murphy's "American Love Story," a TV series set to premiere Valentine's Day week 2026, have ignited a fashion firestorm. The FX show about JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's romance triggered immediate backlash when test images surfaced, prompting Murphy to hire a 10-person style advisory board defensively and scramble to source authentic pieces. This controversy reveals something far more significant than either casting or costume choices, either cultural hot takes or social media humiliation: a fundamental misunderstanding of what made CBK's style revolutionary.

CBK's daytime uniform wasn't built on pristine pieces fresh from Madison Avenue, though of course it did include plenty of luxury. Her genius lay in anchoring quality American sportswear basics with strategic high end punctuation marks – and more crucially, treating those expensive pieces like tools, not trophies.

The Real CBK Formula

While Murphy's team scrambles with their newly hired 10-person style advisory board following the catastrophic backlash, let's examine what they missed entirely. CBK's authentic wardrobe formula relied on:

The Foundation: American Sportswear Basics

• LL Bean Boat & Tote (large, monogrammed) - her sailing weekend carryall
• Levi's jeans (501s, 505s, 517s) in worn, straight-leg and boot-leg cuts made from 100% cotton with natural draping
• Petit Bateau T-shirts for refined layering with close-fitting silhouettes
• Gap tanks and basics for underpinnings and casual wear

The Punctuation: Strategic Luxury Her high-end pieces weren't collected; they were deployed. The Hermès Birkin 40 (not the show's wrong size 35) was carried scuffed and half-open, contents within easy reach. Although Murphy boasted that his team artificially aged their pristine bag to "scruff it up so it looks identical to the one she would wear half-open on the subway," the show's Birkin collapsed inward like a folded paper grocery bag. CBK's Birkin was plump with use.

Her outerwear rotation centered on 1970s-inflected Prada coats that she wore over and over, the same pieces appearing in paparazzi shots repeatedly. These weren't precious collectibles stored in garment bags. They were working pieces that developed character through wear, perfectly embodying her approach to luxury as utility rather than display.

What the Show Got Catastrophically Wrong

The styling choices that triggered fashion experts to describe the costumes as fast fashion rather than CBK's usual Calvin Klein, Prada, and Yohji Yamamoto reveal a deeper misunderstanding:

The Jeans Disaster: The show's stiff traffic cone-shaped flares miss everything about CBK's soft, natural-draping Levi's. The artificial, stretchy jeans look like a plastic imitation. Further, she wore jeans with block heels, flip-flops, loafers, or barefoot – never with stiletto sandals. That's Carrie Bradshaw territory, not CBK.

The Shirt Travesty: The show's fitted button-down with 3/4 sleeves is pure 2019 Kate Middleton. CBK wore oversized white shirts unbuttoned to suggest décolleté, sleeves scrunched up, fabric moving with life and sensuality.