Fashion

Everything We Know About Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's Dress That's Up For Auction

The '90s dress is expecting a hefty five-figure price tag. 

carolyn bessette kennedy john f. kennedy library foundation fashion formal wear tie adult female person woman suit male man
John Kennedy Jr. with Carolyn Bessette Kennedy arrive at the annual John F. Kennedy Library Foundation dinner. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

A very famous item of clothing from Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's wardrobe will be under auction at Bonhams this June. Bessette Kennedy's style is a subject of interest for fashion lovers and Kennedy enthusiasts alike, and for good reason. The Calvin Klein publicist and wife to John F. Kennedy Jr. is often given the nickname the "ghost influencer" as she continues to influence the quiet luxury aesthetic more than 24 years after her death. This July, it will be the 25th anniversary of her, her husband, and her sister, Lauren Bessette's death after the tragic plane crash the trio endured. 

Bessette Kennedy's Yohji Yamamoto dress that will soon be for sale was worn to dinner in 1998 at the Supper Club and then a performance from the Parsons Dance Company afterward. The dress belonged to Bessette Kennedy's childhood best friend Sasha Chermayeff. Chermayeff was within the couple's private inner circle and even named Carolyn and JFK Jr. as godparents to her 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, head of Bonhams Handbags & Fashion Department, told WWD. 
“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 continued. 
The coffee table book CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion was released late last year and is penned by author Sunita Kumar Nair.
“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," Nair told WWD. "Her fashion choices weren’t considered easy fashion bites; the designers she favored 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.” 
Lee Radziwill and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy at Supper Club. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.
Lee Radziwill and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy pictured in the Yohji Yamamoto dress at Supper Club. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.
Bessette Kennedy moved in silence and her elegant style was often sourced from vintage houses around New York which spoke to her ability to curate a sustainable and timeless closet. She didn't feel the need to conform to the traditional New England style the Kennedy women donned and often broke the status quo of high society women. 
“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,” said Speer. 
With Bessette Kennedy's quiet luxury taste being an of-the-moment topic as of late, her Yohji Yamamoto dress may just be in very high demand. 
Speer told WWD that the dress could be worth as much as $20,000. 

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