Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and Calvin Klein share more than a first and last initial. “I wore a lot of Calvin,” laughs Sarah Pidgeon, who stars as Carolyn Bessette Kennedy in FX’s Love Story, the latest addition to Ryan Murphy’s expansive American Story franchise. For the twenty-nine year old actress, becoming Bessette was—among other things—a sartorial affair. 

In the world of Love Story, names like Kennedy and Klein are bigger than their bearers: they are agents of fantasy. From the threads of late-nineties headlines, paparazzi shots, and fashion weeks, Love Story spins a new narrative. As Ryan Murphy retells the romance of John Kennedy Jr. (Paul Anthony Kelly) and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy (Sarah Pidgeon), apparel proves as consequential as action. A portrait of Bessette emerges through subtle, minimalist silhouettes by Yohji Yamamoto, Miuccia Prada, and Calvin Klein. It’s a spin on an old adage—here, clothing makes the character. 

Bessette, a publicist for Calvin Klein, embodied the breezy, minimalist elegance of a bygone era: Soft denim jeans and black turtlenecks; sleek pencil skirts and silky white blouses; earthy corduroys and tinted sunglasses. In an era of microtrends and maximalist overconsumption, Bessette’s icy blonde hair is a splash of cold water. 

“The clothing was so impactful,” Pidgeon says. Using various shots of Kennedy and Bessette, costume designers identified the exact collections they wore, sourcing similar (if not exact) styles to paint the couple from life. Donning tortoiseshell headbands and tinted brown frames gave Pidgeon “a sense of how Carol and John might have felt,” she says. “[Clothing] just immediately changes your body. It changes your attitude; how you hold yourself, how you see yourself.” 

Of course, Love Story is not a frame-for-frame recreation — nor does it claim to be. Murphy’s American Story franchise only visits the truth on occasion. Throughout its five series—which includes the long-running American Horror Story and its companion anthology series, American Horror Stories, as well as American Sports Story, American Crime Story, and now Love Story—reality has varying degrees of prominence. The two horror series are, unsurprisingly, pure fiction. Meanwhile, others dramatize the details of decades-old tabloid sensations and late-night television specials. A sibling to American Sports Story and American Crime Story, Love Story treads close to the truth, but refrains from reenactment.  

“Carolyn and John, considering they’re more modern figures than John’s father and mother were, I think the intricacies of their life—or at least what we are inferring those could be, through this interpretation of their story—are untapped,” says Pidgeon. “I don’t think many television shows or movies have really been written about this generation of the Kennedy family.” 

Perhaps that’s why fashion plays such a forceful role in building the fictional Bessette. After all, apparel is a means of artifice. As iD’s Nicolaia Rips explained the phenomenon: “Carolyn is contemporary fashion’s ultimate muse: […] never subject to the unchic parts of life like aging, divorce, childrearing, career failure, or being forced to talk on camera.” With only so many glamour shots for source material, imagination has room to play.  

Pidgeon recalls “a lot of mystery around Carolyn,” prior to filming. Receiving just two scenes for her audition script, however, the actress explains how this version of Bessette came into focus.  

“Reading the scenes that Connor wrote—Connor Hines—I can’t sing his praises enough. He wrote such a beautiful, beautiful show. Carolyn, immediately, had so much. She was so fully developed, even in a few pages,” Pidgeon gushes. “You saw her sense of humour, her sensitivities, her weariness of getting too close to John F. Kennedy Jr. You saw her ambition. She could connect to people quite easily. Then, as I learned about her, I felt like my initial impressions on the page turned out to be a lot of truths that Carolyn held as the woman that she was and is hopefully remembered for.”  

Pidgeon’s version of Bessette is sensitive and self-possessed; she’s sophisticated, sarcastic, and playful. Above all, she is stylish. Love Story dutifully recreates the elegant showroom of Calvin Klein’s Manhattan flagship, where Bessette dressed stars like Diane Sawyer and championed Kate Moss.  

“One of the most interesting parts of navigating the fashion of this show is that Carolyn was not nearly as heavily photographed [before] as she was post-dating John,” Pidgeon explains. “There’s a couple of years, at the beginning of our show, where Carolyn needs clothes to wear to work—to the club, to hang out with her friends, to go on a date with John—and we don’t necessarily have photo evidence of that.”  

Working with designer Rudy Mance (“Really, I can’t sing his praises enough!”), Pidgeon found that fashion could bring Bessette’s qualities to life. “It was a really interesting meditation and collaboration,” says the actress. Apparel became a way to illustrate the more enigmatic aspects of Bessette. With Mance, Pidgeon asked questions like, “What might earlier Carolyn Bassette look like, before we have the photos of her? What would she have been wearing at Calvin Klein?” Alongside plenty of Calvin, the actress lists Narciso Rodriguez dresses and Levi’s—“She loved her Levi’s!”—among her favourite looks of the season.  

Pidgeon’s costumes are much more than a clever needle-drop. Fashion offers a visual companion to Love Story’s romantic and psychological conflicts. “[Love Story] investigates the feeling of legacy that John has to deal with [and] what it means for Carolyn to join this family—a storied family, not only in the States, but really around the world,” Pidgeon explains. As Mance assembled the wardrobe, Pidgeon says she was “able to chart how [Bessette] evolved throughout her time.”  

So, while Love Story follows the Kennedy-Bessette romance from the outside, Pidgeon’s carefully-curated wardrobe reflects interiority. Recognizable silhouettes announced Bessette’s agency over her own image, even after the paparazzi’s overnight obsession. Later, amidst pressure to assimilate into (arguably) the most powerful family in American politics, fashion became a way for Bessette to retain her sense of self.  

As Pidgeon portrays the journey on-screen, it’s impossible not to feel inspired. When the actress says that Bessette’s legacy “surely endures” today, it’s no surprise: some things never go out of style.  

FX’s “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette” is streaming now on Hulu on Disney+ in Canada. 

Feature Image FX’S “LOVE STORY: JOHN F. KENNEDY JR. & CAROLYN BESSETTE.” Courtesy of Disney.