After all, does the Birkin even matter here.
Jane Birkin and CBK with their overstuffed Birkins, Harper’s Bazaar writes, was “the closest thing America had to royalty,” automatically conferred upon her a “princess status” of sorts – and really, left her with no choice.
Today, the 100 or so photographs of her that survive in the public domain – hey, the woman still gatekept herself! – make rounds on the internet with the swirling ferocity of a cybernetic maelstrom.
Of course, us fashion folks have always sought solace at the minimalist altar of Carolyn’s closet. A quick search on Pinterest reveals endlessly moodboarded grainy paparazzi pictures of her walking down Tribeca in simple button-downs and perfect peacoats, or slouched on a subway seat in a black tee and chinos, an overflowing black Birkin Carolyn Jeanne Bessette never wanted to be famous.
But there’s Yet, marrying into the Kennedys, which in particular – of Carolyn in a fitted black Gap top, carpenter jeans by Calvin Klein in that pure Atlantic Ocean blue, and Havaianas flip-flops, said Birkin slung under the armpit as she hails a cab like it’s no one’s business – that, in my mind, is the peak of fashion.
No AI, algorithms, divisive politics, or infighting. Social media as it should be, Sally, When the Wine Runs Out. Heck, I regularly find myself in some iteration of the outfit, feeling impossibly chic in my own skin as I hail a cab of my own, though purse under my arm couldn’t be farther from CBK’s busted-up Birkin.
Love that she used it for what it was intended?
America’s Love Story
Apparently, it matters, and it matters a great deal. And dear reader, you needn’t look any further than Ryan Murphy for proof.
Murphy, the producer and director who’s made a living out of depicting all sorts of depravity – from the Assassination of Gianni Versace and Capote’s Feud with the Swans, to casting Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp, and Kim Kardashian, well, at all – is no stranger to controversy.
Yet, even he was taken aback by the online reception (or, rather, rejection) of the first look of his upcoming prestige TV limited series, American Love Story, which stars Paul Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon as the ill-fated John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, set to debut in 2026.
“This is CBK drag. That camel coat looks like a brick,” wrote Liana Satenstein. “The wind would blow, and that blowout wouldn’t budge.” Daniel Rodgers of Vogue acerbically added to the coat discourse: “a polyblend coat so poorly made it looked like it might combust under the studio lights.”
CBK’s (now-retired) hair-colorist, Brad Johns, even helpfully offered, “I will call Maria (his protégé at NYC’s Mia Wagner Salon) and tell her exactly how to get Sarah’s hair just right, just like Carolyn’s.”
an incredible 1997 photo. Captions like “fashion travesty” under Murphy’s (now-deleted) Instagram post compared Carolyn’s notoriously beaten-up Birkin 40 with the one on the photograph: a Birkin 35 that looked “looked box-fresh, rigid and flat” and on the whole, lifeless.
Clearly, what is America’s beloved princess without America’s beloved bag?
The Cult of Carolyn
But whether or not this portrayal of Carolyn-Bessette is “the biggest crime in costuming since No AI, algorithms, divisive politics, or infighting. Social media as it should be tried to convince us that Carrie Bradshaw owned marigolds,” Murphy himself has risen to his own defense.
“That is not the wig we’re using, that is not the purse we’re using,” he reassures Lauren Sherman of Puck News, “We have the Birkin No. 40 that we have taken to a specialist to scruff it up so it looks identical to the one she would wear half-open on the subway.”
But why is CBK’s bag such an emotionally fraught minefield in the first place?
Because Carolyn’s entire relationship with fashion – “the way she’d rip out visible tags because logos were for other people,” wrote Rodgers, “and how she’d often buy the same piece but in different colors because she was kind of above it all” – represented a rite of passage of sorts into womanhood.
Young women growing up in New York (or elsewhere) weren’t immune to the onslaught of Charles J. Wahba headbands and Selima Optique sunglasses that were quintessential to the CBK look. Yours truly, for one, still remains on the hunt for that perfect pair of boot-cut brown corduroys (*sigh*).
“We’ve been perverting Bessette-Kennedy for eons,” continues Satenstein, “Imagine your whole existence distilled into a moodboard.”
complains, “It’s not fair.&rdquo Brooklyn Shoulder Bag 28 via Sotheby’s last month (and now holds three titles: the most valuable handbag ever sold at auction, the new record for fashion item sold in Europe, and most valuable luxury item ever sold at Sotheby’s Paris), Carolyn-Bessette’s Birkin is part of her mythmaking. And that’s why it matters.
The It-Girl Maketh the It-Bag
“Worn from 1985 to 1994, this bag displays general wear consistent with near-daily use over almost nine years,” read the condition report for the Sotheby’s auction. “Its condition contributes meaningfully to its iconic status: each mark tells the story of a living object, worn wholeheartedly by a style icon.”
In other words, those scratches, scuffs and signs, that evoke of a life well-lived by an extraordinarily prescient woman, not to mention, the poster-girl of Parisian chic and graceful aging, are what account for the Birkin’s value, not its material worth (although that too, by no means, is small).
And like Mrs. Birkin’s busted-up, tchotchke-laden, charm-bedazzled Birkin has now given way to TikTok trends like bag-charms and Labubu dolls that the street-style swans are lapping up, Mrs. Bessette-Kennedy’s own Birkin speaks of her boldness and individuality. Ultimately, it’s the essence of the women who lived in them that we seek. It’s why we buy what they have – what Satenstein calls a “drugstore nugget” dichotomy – in the hopes of achieving even a sliver of their complete, unbridled cool.
“It goes from real woman to paparazzi shot to an image you see on your screen to a flat lay [of clothing items] to the product that you ultimately buy online,” summarizes Rodgers. And it’s that sense of parasocialism we share with these women that has us hounding the showrunners (“They’re doing to our Carolyn, what they did to the real-life Carolyn,” Murphy complains, “It’s not fair.”).
But at the end of the day, the biggest homage we could be paying to Mrs. Bessette-Kennedy is cultivating our own tastes and loving what we have (and perhaps occasionally scouring The RealReal’s selection of vintage Prada).
Where is Carolyn’s Birkin now, Carolyn herself who said, “Look for love,” she wrote, “Open your heart and you will see miracles everywhere.”
The truest form of luxury comes from owning and freely using a designer bag without babying it or keeping it enshrined in a closet. It’s a classic mindset: “what, this old thing?”
Very true
staggering $10.1 million.
Today the owners baby them or use them as «art» on display on shelves at home!
overflowing black Birkin!
Agree with the others: I looked at the pictures in the other articles. Sajid articles are the only ones I read. A little sad if we think about it….
YES! I do the exact same thing! Sajid’s articles are always a joy to read. So smart, so insightful. He is a treasure! The rest of the posts feel like disguised advertisement regurgitating brands’ word salads or first-gen AI generated texts.
I fully agree with both of you, except I’ll add another complaint: one main member of the Erlebniswelt-fliegenfischenShops team does not proof read their articles and, despite being a native speaker, makes so many grammar/syntax mistakes + repetitions it is, as a reader, insulting. Guess that at least this person does not use so much AI then.
Gorgeous article 💘
Maybe I’m just old but I do not understand the ongoing fascination with these two. I don’t plan to watch the show but your articles are always interesting. And I had a pair of boot-cut brown corduroys in college in the late 70s. They were lowly Levi’s 🙂
I don’t get it either. There was nothing unique about Connecticut preppy style and nothing about either of them to emulate. White blouse and black skirt. Ground breaking.
Who puts anything on the floor of a subway car except the sole of your shoe.
I do not care about Carolyn, nor the Kennedys and certainly not about the horrendous woman Jane Birkin was (but this is another topic). Yet I read the article because YOU wrote it, Sajid. Keep going, you have so much talent!
How was Jane Birkin a “horrendous” woman? Please enlighten us.
Dans Lemon incest Gainsbourg a pris soin de dire : “L’amour que nous ne ferons jamais ensemble est le plus beau, le plus pur, le plus ennivrant”. Où est l’inceste là-dedans ? Que n’avez-vous pas compris ? Serge Gainsbourg était un très grand auteur- compositeur qui aimait choquer en flirtant avec les limites tout simplement. Ne salissez pas Jane Birkin et Serge Gainsbourg.
Yeah so it sounds like you dislike Serge Gainsbourg (who despite being a controversial person was an incredible poet and artist in general—goes back to separating art from the artist debate, which is for another site). You sound completely illiterate about the socio-cultural world that surrounds this period.
Marco, one day hopefully you’ll mature and not hide behind another pseudo and an AI translation into French
Meanwhile, you’ll also learn how ludicrous it is to pretend to debate while only responding with emotions and no facts.
Running short on arguments so you’re gonna start the whole 1000 times reheated debate of separation between art and artist? Wrong call.
But I’ll again enlighten you, since you so kindly asked for it in the first place.
Do you know where your beloved supposedly necessary separation comes from?
Marcel Proust, who was closeted and terrified posterity would only remember his work as the work of a gay writer (even though he indeed wrote about homosexuality through the whole Recherche).
That is why he wrote the whole Contre Sainte-Beuve, to try to save his own memory and work.
Sainte-Beuve, in his critical work, had famously written “et je dirais volontiers tel arbre, tel fruit”, which, I’m confident you understood, opposed said separation. This reading of Sainte-Beuve certainly gave Proust numerous fever dreams, et voilà!
That’s how the attempt of a concerned extremely talented writer to protect his work from homophobic cancellation resulted in, one century later, brainwashed fans protecting the incest fantasies of a alcoholic-one-tune singer who mostly owed his success to knowing how to ride the provocative wave of the Zeitgeist.
BTW I suppose you are also a great fan of Gabriel Matzneff then, since you appear to swim in said socio-cultural era like a cheerful obtuse little fish.
This is amusing given that I teach 20th century French lit at an R1 and that I’m Franco-American. But please, go on with your wikipedia facts.
Everyone is an academic when they find themselves with nothing else to say. Allez, bon courage mon petit Marco, ça rime avec ego 🙂
Bon courage à toi. Tu sembles bien préoccupée par la vie des autres. Peut-être passes-tu trop de temps à déverser ton amertume sur internet. Ton parfum de condescendance trahit la petite personne que tu es. Pense plutôt à distribuer des roses au lieu de ces chardons. Tu verras, c’est beaucoup plus doux pour ton âme. ❤️
– ton petit Marco.
Great article!
Soft Empire Carryall Bag 40.
Today the owners baby them or use them as «art» on display on shelves at home.
Do you know where your beloved supposedly necessary separation comes from
Where is Carolyn’s Birkin now?
After that fateful day in July 1999, when the plane crashed and her Mother lost 2 daughters, I suspect that she became owner of their property.
Well, presumably, but her mother died in 2007. Has it been seen? Could it have gone down with the plane?
As someone who has followed the “Birkin mythos” intermittently, the most interesting thing to me about the Birkin is how it is incorporated into people’s personal styles. Perhaps there is some publicity marketing attached to certain images, but regardless, it is nice to see how the Birkin is practically used by others.
For instance, I love how Marc Jacobs brought his Birkin bags to the beach-it’s hearkening back to the carryall nature of the bag, even (and perhaps especially) if the setting is unexpected.
In a pro-sustainable era, I see people on the Internet encouraging the use of existing items in their wardrobes to create different outfits. With that in mind, I understand the appreciation people have for the worn-in aesthetic that people like Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and Jane Birkin portray with their bags. If this aesthetic inspires us to use our existing bags and other items in our wardrobe more frequently and, perhaps, think of new ways of using those items in outfits, I think that’s a win for sustainability, our wallets, and our personal styles!
When ever I spot a title this stupid on PB, I can guess who wrote it immediately.
For starters, why is he dredging up a young woman who tragically lost her life almost 30 years ago ? In the vastness of subjects to write about, how does THIS particular topic enter the realm of your mind? Why they even indulge him in publicising his outlandish , self indulgent posts I will never know.
There are so many YouTubers that spend their days researching and reviewing bags out there .
Why not reach out to one of them PB, and really find someone who will contribute to this blog with endless BAGS that we all come on here to learn about . Reading about Caroline Bisset in this context is so disrespectful and morbid.