I have recently been watching ‘Love Story’, the Ryan Murphy series about the whirlwind romance between John F. Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette. But to me the program was really about another love affair entirely — that of John John and his Hat Hats, as he almost certainly didn’t call them. For a man with a remarkable head of hair, JFK Jr sure did love a baseball cap. (It is one of several things he and I have in common, though my father still maintains he never slept with Marilyn Monroe). Which got me wondering. What are the other all-time-great accessories that John F Kennedy Jr wore? Is it time to invest in ‘TriBeCa’? And when will someone commission a nine-part premium drama about the Bullmore family curse (gout)?
The titanium-clad point-and-shoot Minilux was released in September 1995 — the exact same month that Kennedy’s political-lifestyle magazine George was launched. Was JFK Jr on a self-commissioned photo assignment when this shot was taken? (‘Revealed: Manhattan’s Longest Dog Leads!’) Or was he simply directing the gaze back on the paparazzi who followed him like gulls to the trawler? Either way, there’s something sweetly ‘90s Vacation Dad’ about Kenendy’s leather strap and special carry case, which he struggles goofily with here. A special mention must also go to the embroidered hat, which my mother’s Aga tea kettle would quite like back now.
In all the endless ‘get the look’ influencer editorial that surrounds the new intrigue in JFK Jr’s style, one piece has been frequently overlooked: the wallet chain. Could it be that this item — last successfully worn in 2002 by the boy at my school who had a really great yo-yo collection but a really terrible father and would shove you into a locker accordingly — is beyond even the grasp of the Jacob Elordi-a-likes currently gumming up my social feed? Or is it high time that Aime Leon Dore released a £500 collab with Rip Curl, advertised inexplicably by shots of an old Italian man eating pasta?
Very JP Morgan Grad Scheme 2012, this. (Though anyone sporting a pale linen suit on their first day in the City would surely be banished immediately to the Cayman office.) Kennedy, who famously failed his bar exam twice (‘The Hunk Flunks!’ ran the headline), pulls off a look here that would render many lesser men as overgrown schoolboys on their first day of fourth form — entirely unaware that they are about to be hung from the rugby posts by their JanSport.
JFK Jr (the ‘F’ stands for ‘Fracture’) often contrasted his square, precise, Master of the Universe navy suits with a rough-and-ready adrenaline chic — exhibited, most obviously, by the presence of various wrist braces and leg casts over the years. His ankle cast, obtained during a paragliding accident in 1999, was perhaps the most iconic — the exposed toes, even with a grey business suit, surely a rare metaphorical chink in the armour of the first son of Camelot, which is a sentence I’m actually really proud of. Sadly, the cast soon became a totem of that same dynasty’s enduring curse. John had it removed just a couple of days before his fatal plane crash off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard on July 16th, 1999, and his weakened ankle is thought to have contributed to the accident.
JFK Jr used a large number of road and mountain bikes on his jaunts up and down Manhattan — mainly because he often forgot to lock them up and would frequently return to find them stolen. (In homage, I am now similarly lax with a Lime Bike.) Models include a metallic red GT with flat handlebars, a storm grey Peugeot racer, a jet-black TREK, a banana yellow Cignal, and, perhaps most pleasingly of all, a purple Gary Fisher Aquila with pale grey off-road tires and bull-horn handlebars — amply rugged for tackling the frightful cobbles of TriBeCa or the odd paparazzo speedbump.
“He used to bicycle to work every day,” said Michael Gross, one of John’s friends and a contributor to George. “Don't you just love the image of John Kennedy Jr. on his bicycle, free as a bird? This is a beautiful image of someone who lives in a cage, finding a way to escape.”
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Issue 4
From Jacob Elordi’s Marlborough drawl to Lithgow’s Churchill growl, the best public school accents in film often come from actors who never set foot near a tuck shop.
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