LONDON — For the first time ever, an item of clothing from Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s wardrobe is going under auction at Bonhams in New York in June as part of the auction house’s third online fashion sale in the U.S.
Bessette Kennedy, the former Calvin Klein publicist turned wife of John F. Kennedy Jr., wore the dress to dinner in 1998 at the Supper Club followed by a performance from the Parsons Dance Company.
Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s Yohji Yamamoto dress.
Thann Clark
The dress is being offered up by Sasha Chermayeff, a childhood friend of Kennedy Jr.’s and the couple were godparents to Chermayeff’s children.
“After a couple of months of conversations, the timing just felt right with the book ‘CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion’ coming out,” said Marissa Speer, who is heading up the sale at Bonhams.
There is a resurgence around Bessette Kennedy right now, partly because July will mark 25 years since her tragic plane crash death and because she epitomizes the quiet luxury trend.
“Nobody embodies quiet luxury than more than she did. There’s a purposeful reason for the way that she dressed herself. These beautiful pieces that we see aren’t the pieces that are a trend at the moment, but they’re pieces that you can’t tell when they were made unless you know what to look for in a label. They’re forever perfect [pieces],” said Speer.
Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s Yohji Yamamoto dress.
Thann Clark
Bessette Kennedy was a nonconformist in her style. She didn’t adhere to the way she was expected to dress just because of the family she married into and she certainly didn’t take her cues from her mother-in-law, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Speer describes her as a rulebreaker, in a very subtle and elegant way.
“She didn’t put her wedding announcement in The New York Times and she didn’t do a Vogue wedding profile. There’s something really interesting and groundbreaking about that, especially at that time,” she adds.
“The global press, Kennedy Jr.’s circles and Kennedy admirers were mostly quite perplexed by her dress choices. The patrician labels such as Chanel or Dior with their obvious house signatures of fabric and hardware were too obvious for Carolyn. Her fashion choices weren’t considered easy fashion bites; the designers she favoured were mainly worn by the fashion industry, so she sort of made it more mainstream by wearing it for public events. While it wasn’t necessarily appreciated at the time, it was groundbreaking for time to come,” said Sunita Kumar Nair, author of “CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion.”
Bessette Kennedy was a vintage sourcer and she shopped at all the major vintage houses in New York.
“There’s a sustainability aspect to it and creating a capsule wardrobe. One of her friends said that she only had 40 pieces in her wardrobe — that lack of excess is admirable,” said Speer, adding that the auction world has changed immensely.
The auction also will feature a black silk wrap trench dress from Yohji Yamamoto’s spring 1998 collection with a starting price of $1,800. It is estimated to sell for $3,000, but will most likely sell for more, according to Speer. The Yohji Yamamoto dress is a size small and has been declared by Bonhams to be in excellent condition.
The dress features a layered collar and lapel, a silk adjustable waist tie, trench cuff detailing.
John F. Kennedy Jr. with his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy circa 1995.
Getty Images
Speer started her career as a dealer in vintage and there were only a handful of people shopping at auction houses.
“This piece [the Bessette Kennedy dress] could be worth $20,000, but would you rather have 100 people shopping in your store or one person shopping in your store? What we want to do is create approachable pricing,” said Speer.