Stylish Read: CBK A Life in Fashion

There's been a flurry of fashion books lately. I hesitate buying all of them so have depended on my local library and its interlibrary loan system. "CBK Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion" came out last year with a hefty price tag of $65. It's oversize and heavy and published by Abrams, know for quality art books. So really this book should be called something like "The Art of the Life in Fashion of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy". 

CBK, as I don't she was called to her face, died in 1999 with her husband, John Kennedy, Jr., in that tragic plane crash. They'd been married for three years, and she was 33 years old. A brief life, for sure.

Another stylish woman comes to mind, Diana Princess of Wales. She also died quite young at 38 but had achieved much in her life and evolved tremendously in her style. She was and remains a subject of fascination and scrutiny. 

Loveliness much scrutinized

I don't think a big, beautifully designed book can do that for Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. It was just too soon; she was just too young. What CBK (sorry it's quicker) did was adopt a pretty standard New York City-chic vibe of the '90s (the minimalism of not only Calvin Klein but Donna Karan, Armani, Yamamoto, etc.) with a strict discipline that most 33-year olds are not able to muster and many women never can. She had rules about what she liked—her hair, makeup or lack thereof, accessories, etc. That at 33 is unusual and gives clues to me about her personality. 

Carolyn notoriously hated the press and rarely gave interviews. What we know about her are from tributes and remembrances of friends and colleagues. Those are peppered throughout "A Life in Fashion" along with analysis of her by people she never met and random dissertations on some of her favorite looks, ie the history and meaning of the white shirt. 

So what "CBK: A Life in Fashion" does is hone in on portions of her signature looks and digress: the shirt, the color tan, the coat, the dress. I do give CBK full props for that wedding dress, which she designed in tandem with her friend and former Calvin Klein designer Narciso Rodriguez. It really did turn the bridal industry on its ear, not to mention change Narciso Rodriguez' life. 

The only official wedding pix

For a book full of pictures, many of her best shots are not included. There are more in the more straight-on biography,  "Once Upon a Time", which I had trouble plowing through*. Some in fact, mostly the papparazzi shots where she was visibly annoyed, are almost unflattering. It made me think this was her way of rebelling over attention she didn't want and hated.

Her style, beautiful in its simplicity and her looks, open and mysterious at the same time, have given rise to many theories. Sadly we will never really know who was Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, or more poignantly, who was the woman she would have become.

* While details of Carolyn's childhood were quite interesting, once again, she was so young for a full-on biography. Plus the author had a tendency to A) give dialog to situations where no one could have been present and B) slip into some fawning over her subject. But the photos are nice.