I Sourced Vintage Pieces for Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy in "Love Story"

How a deep dive into the CBK internet led to more than 27 real pieces, a global vintage hunt, and one of the most satisfying sourcing missions I’ve ever had.

All photos in this post are from my iphoto carolyn folder. These were the pieces I was hunting for.

Every time I see a headline about Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s style or hear someone asking how to get the CBK look, I smile a little because I had the pleasure of sourcing authentic vintage pieces for her character in Love Story. It’s a quiet thought I mostly keep to myself. A small mental pat on the back, knowing that, in some small way, I helped bring one of the most iconic women of style back into the world again. And honestly, that felt pretty great.

Vintage is basically a language and so are the search terms used to find those pieces. Some people walk into a store and see a rack of old clothes. I walk in and see provenance, construction, fabric, era, rarity. I see the difference between a 1996 Prada coat and a 1998 Prada coat. Which is either a very specific skill set… or a personality disorder. Occasionally, it becomes useful, for example, this past summer when I got to work as a consultant on Ryan Murphy’s Love Story, which felt like the ultimate vintage scavenger hunt for the ultimate It Girl. The show doesn’t need more of an introduction, but for anyone who hasn’t yet seen the ads or posts on social media, Love Story is about Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr.

That obsession with the details is exactly what my role on Love Story demanded. My consulting job was very specific: help source and find vintage pieces that were true to Carolyn’s style. Ryan wasn’t interested in just recreating “90s fashion.” He wanted the clothes to feel as close as possible to what Carolyn actually wore. Not just the vibe. The real references. The real pieces, whenever possible.

Which, if you know Carolyn’s wardrobe, is not exactly easy.

There was an incredible team involved, all bringing different expertise. The brilliant costume designer Rudy Mance was leading the charge. The prolific Lou Eyrich (Ryan’s long-time costume designer was also on the project). I also got to work with my best friend, former business partner and fellow stylist, Jamie Mizrahi on this project too, which made it even more fun to collaborate and compare notes. My lane was sourcing vintage, specifically 90s vintage, which happens to be one of my more niche skill sets.

So I did what any rational person would do. I went down the Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy internet rabbit hole. And when I say rabbit hole, I mean deep.

There’s an entire ecosystem of fans dedicated to Carolyn. Instagram accounts cataloging every coat, skirt, and pair of sunglasses she ever wore. Most with CBK somewhere in the handle.

Some of my favorites: @cbk_style, @cbkclothing_, @thecollector_cbk, @allforcarolyn, @cbkcloset, @thetwomrs, and @themillennialdecorator (who helped me source some great Manolos in larger sizes).

Entire feeds devoted to identifying her wardrobe.

These people know things.

They’re so tapped into CBK that they can identify a headscarf or a coat from a blurry paparazzi photo taken across the street in 1996. Naturally, I started following them. Then, messaging them. Asking where they sourced things, who had the best collections, and what pieces were still floating around out there. Before I knew it, my entire summer had turned into a global vintage treasure hunt.

I was in contact with countless vintage stores, dealers, messaging collectors, scrolling:

• eBay
• Etsy
• Vestiaire
• The RealReal

Pieces were coming from everywhere:

• Los Angeles
• New York
• Canada
• Australia

If there was even a whisper of a Carolyn piece floating around the internet, I wanted to know about it.

Then one day, I connected with a collector on Instagram named Annie. Annie had quietly built an incredible archive. Twenty-seven pieces connected to Carolyn’s wardrobe. Not replicas. Not inspired by pieces.

Annie and some of her pieces.

Annie believed she had found some of the actual garments Carolyn had worn. She could not confirm provenance, but believed that some of the pieces were owned by Carolyn. In any case, she had the iconic prada pencil skirts, the bags, the Valentino green plaid jacket. Annie had so many of the incredible Yohji Yamamoto sets, that Carolyn favored in the later years. She had the camel single breasted Prada coat (first seen on Carolyn in 1996) that every CBK obsessive knows by heart.

I had officially hit the vintage jackpot!

At the same time, I was on a parallel mission trying to track down the perfect pair of vintage Levi’s 517s. Not just any pair. The right wash, the right rise, the slightly cropped break Carolyn always had.

If you know vintage denim, you know that finding that exact pair is somewhere between skill, patience, and blind luck, especially when you’re sourcing for an actress who has very long legs. But I tracked them down. It took me 4weeks, and ultimately, through working with very skilled people, using exact measurements that were then converted into vintage levi measurements (thank you @jeangenievintageshop for teaching me how to convert current measurements into vintage denim sizes), a couple amazing pairs came my way .

This is the part of vintage sourcing I love most. The treasure hunt. There is something incredibly satisfying about chasing down a piece that everyone tells you doesn’t exist and then locating it three countries away in someone’s closet.

I didn’t costume design the show. Rudy did a beautiful job bringing everything together. But being part of the vintage sourcing was one of those projects that reminded me exactly why I love this strange little niche skill of mine.

And the story of my sourcing adventure actually has a great ending.

After the show wrapped, Annie took those twenty-seven pieces from her collection to auction. The very same pieces we had been obsessing over all summer. And she did very well. Which honestly made me so happy for her. Anyone who spends that much time carefully hunting and preserving fashion history deserves a good payday.

In the end, the summer of endless messages, obscure search terms, and late-night treasure hunts led to something unexpectedly satisfying. Twenty-seven real pieces, tracked down across the globe, now living on screen as Carolyn’s wardrobe once again. It wasn’t just about finding clothes; it was about connecting history, passion, and a little bit of obsession into something tangible.

xo, Simone