Loose Threads
After ten years as Marni’s creative director, Francesco Risso is moving on. The Vogue Business article that broke the news includes the intriguing detail that he was “born on a sailing boat.”
Sarah Jessica Parker’s podcast promo tour of And Just Like That continued with Wednesday’s episode of Call Her Daddy. She talked about how hard it was when she read mean things people were writing about her appearance.
One of my favorite things I own is a Chanel watch bought second-hand after the Chanel boutique wouldn’t sell it to me new, probably because I’ve never spent a dime there and likely never will. The website Bezel exists specifically to facilitate sales of second-hand luxury watches and they have a really good Chanel collection. If one of you is rich and likes a little bling, please get this one.
Valentino’s new resort collection is out and it’s basically what you’d expect from Alessandro Michele, except the models are lying down in bed.
If you’re in New York in the next ten days, Hermès has erected an elaborate marketing gimmick that involves entering into a “fictional French estate” and solving a mystery.
Before today’s big story, you may want to catch up on Back Row’s Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy coverage:
Why Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy's Look Can't Be Replicated
Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s style has captivated people more than 25 years after her death because no one has matched her chic. No actress, no socialite, no pop star, no “It” girl — no one has come close to replicating her look or the intrigue surrounding her. And maybe in this age of corporate fashion and cookie cutter styling and influencing, no one can even come close.
Showrunner Ryan Murphy released stills late last week of Sarah Pigeon in costume as Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy for his miniseries American Love Story, based on the page-turning biography Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Live of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy by Elizabeth Beller, premiering in February 2026.
The internet has been going off about the styling of the Carolyn character since the photos dropped. One in particular, of Pidgeon wearing a tan coat holding a deflated black Birkin 35 drew outrage. “What in the Aritzia is going on?” cried creator Jasmine Darya. People pointed out that the hair was too platinum and the Birkin both the wrong size (Carolyn carried a 40 cm) and too empty. Then there was the coat, which looked too thin and not like anything we know from the limited photos we have of Carolyn wearing coats (some of the most recognizable of which were Prada). But overall, it just didn’t feel right.
Subsequent shots of Pidgeon filming the show in Converse sneakers, a brown midi skirt, and black leather blazer were met with similar reception, with creators and writers questioning the shoes in particular. But as Beller reported in her book, Carolyn did wear Chuck Taylors in the years before she met John F. Kennedy Jr., when she was making her way in the fashion industry as a newbie in the VIP department at Calvin Klein.
Hollywood has always struggled to get fashion right in television and movies. It seems to do better when the looks are outlandish and not trying to be tasteful (Sex and the City, The Devil Wears Prada, Emily in Paris) than when the clothes are supposed to be minimalist and chic. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to make a show like this when it’s not even close to finished and creators and writers are driving the conversation about the things you’re allegedly doing wrong, sometimes with inaccurate information. But even if you hadn’t read Beller’s book, headlines like this were particularly baffling:
She wears sneakers in some of the most famous paparazzi shots of her and John from the nineties (arguably, some of the most famous paparazzi shots of all time!).
While Pidgeon’s clothes could have been more true to the pieces Carolyn actually wore, I’d argue that that’s not the only factor that’s lead to such a strong reaction.
Here are four things that are also likely to blame.
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