LONDON — John F. Kennedy Jr. was an anomaly.
The good looks of the son of President John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy Onassis blurred the line between glitz, glamour, politics and policy.
Over the decades, Kennedy Jr. has earned the epithet of style icon.
Steven M. Gillon, a friend of Kennedy Jr. and author of “America’s Reluctant Prince: The Life of John F. Kennedy Jr.,” remembers a different type of man.
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“Day in and day out, John was a slob. He would just throw things on and they didn’t match. He didn’t wear the right size. It’s funny for those of us who knew him to see him as this style icon. He certainly could clean up really well and part of that is his mom’s influence. Jackie had her own style and presence about her — I think that rubbed off on John,” he said.
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Terry Newman, author of “Marilyn Monroe Style” contends that Kennedy Onassis set the “standard for American political glamour. Her influence on JFK Jr. was about an understanding of the visual language of elegance. He grew up in an environment where aesthetics mattered, where appearance was diplomacy.”
Now, 26 years after Kennedy Jr.’s death, he’s still a subject of fascination, mostly for his Prince Charming genes and nonchalant style. His fame, like many in the Kennedy clan, has stood the test of time.
“He was an incredibly attractive guy and he came of age during the emergence of celebrity culture in America,” said Gillon.
Kennedy Jr.’s life and style is being revisited, again. “American Prince: JFK Jr.,” a three-part CNN documentary series currently airing, digs beneath the surface of his life, and “American Love Story,” a FX series retelling his relationship with his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, is due out next year.
Last year in New York, Bonhams held an auction of clothing belonging to Kennedy Jr. The lots included a Calvin Klein tuxedo, two-piece suit and black tie, as well as a Giorgio Armani overcoat, all from the ‘90s.
The Calvin Klein pieces trace back to the start of his relationship with his future wife, who at the time was a Calvin Klein staffer whose specialty was VIPs. The pair met in 1992 at the VIP fitting room of the American brand.
Gillon said Bessette Kennedy also played a similar role to Kennedy Onassis’ when it came to sartorial matters.
“She was in the fashion business and she had an influence on John. If it hadn’t been for his mom or Carolyn, John would walk around every day wearing baggy shorts and a ripped sweater. I don’t think that he had much of a sense of style on his own. He didn’t really care about the way he looked, except when he was in public.”
Carole Radziwill, a family friend of the couple and the wife of Anthony Radziwill, Kennedy Jr.’s cousin, agreed that Kennedy Jr. “didn’t have much of a specific style. He looked good in whatever he wore. Carolyn didn’t fuss much over what he wore and it shows,” she added.
Kennedy Jr. represented the ultimate modern New York man in the ‘90s. He had the allure and a famous family name that could save anyone.
In Season Two, Episode Five of “Sex and the City,” Samantha Jones is rescued from social Siberia by a man obscured by sunlight, originally meant to be Kennedy Jr., but later changed to Leonardo DiCaprio, due to sensitivity reasons. The episode originally aired 12 days before his death in 1999.
Kennedy Jr. was a New York landmark. There are paparazzi photos of him exercising topless in Central Park; strolling through TriBeCa with his hand wrapped in a bandage, and cycling through the city in a blazer and rolled-up trousers with white socks.
“He was the daredevil and the prince of America,” said Sunita Kumar Nair, author of “CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion.” “When I think about him in New York, he was always on wheels, either on his bike or on some rollerblades — that was his way of escaping this obsession that was placed upon him.”
His eclectic style was a product of his upbringing and growing up between America and Europe. Case in point, he would wear a beret with a zip-up sweater; a waistcoat with a printed shirt and slacks, or a gray polo with a gilet and blue jeans.
“Americans are known for their love of sports. I always think of him as a ‘90s version of ‘Take Ivy,’ that waspy, preppy, educated man, but kind of decluttered and made less of a fuss,” said Nair. “We [also] need to remember that he’s a Bouvier, too, and that he was with Jackie on Skorpios. He was surrounded by the European jet set and Jackie always had that Eurocentric sensibility that made some kind of impression on him.”
Kennedy Jr. may have dressed like any regular guy in his oversize or wrinkled T-shirts, but his Kennedy blood and laid-back mannerism made him just a touch more appealing. It also makes him a modern muse for many designers, including Jonathan Anderson when he was designing the costumes for Luca Guadagnino’s tennis-inspired film “Challengers.” In the film, Zendaya wears a T-shirt that reads “I told ya,” based on one of Kennedy Jr.’s own T-shirts.
“When JFK Jr. was younger, in the ‘80s and ‘90s, there was kind of an effortlessness to his wardrobe — like he could wear anything, and sex appeal would always be there,” the designer told WWD last year.
When Kennedy Jr. launched his political magazine George, he didn’t shy away from putting himself out there. In the magazine’s September 1997 issue, the Washington-born attorney and magazine publisher posed nude under a tree with a dangling apple.
The image was met with raised eyebrows by some, but it seems Kennedy Jr. and George wanted to ask: Why should someone be boring or superficial to like politics or celebrity culture?