The Tamesis
Before she became Mrs. John F. Kennedy, Jr., she might not have been immediately distinguishable from all the other young brunette blondes in town fashionably opening their Birkin bags, but at some early stage she decided unequivocally to break that image. The first sign of her independent tendencies was asking her friend Narciso Rodriguez, whom she met while working as an unknown designer at Klein Studio, to design her wedding dress. Later, realizing that the girl might benefit from a bit of an advantage by being voted the “ultimate beauty” by her high school classmates in Greenwich, Connecticut, she began to appear at various charity balls and black-tie dinners, either with Versace’s matrimonial estate or, with increasing frequency, at that of Yohji Yamamoto. Two images come to mind: last year, her wearing black opera gloves and a strapless black Yamamoto gown, shaking hands with British Prime Minister Tony Blair; and her joining her at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, wearing a peak-collared double-breasted evening gown and a Bakelite fan necklace ordered from Jean Paul Gaultier’s Spring ’99 Haute Couture collection, snuggling with her husband.
When the press noticed his wife’s emerging style, her husband was ecstatic: “You have to look at the back; the back is the best part,” he once told a reporter inquiring about a particular item of clothing. But then Kennedy spent a long time navigating the minefield of public life, honing his skills at disarming reporters with a winning combination of candor, wit and charm, which came in handy when “Macho Fail” and “The Sexiest Man Alive” hit newsstands. He also had the opportunity to display dignity and grace, which offset his sometimes shaky image. For example, on May 20, 1994, he stood in front of 1040 Fifth Avenue, faced the crowd with remarkable aplomb, and announced the news that horrified the world: “Last night, at about 10:15, my mother passed away…”
But he also showed that there was a bit of a provocateur, a media firebrand in him. In 1995, when he launched georgehe invited Madonna, with whom he was “connected”, to write an article titled “If I Were President.” A year later, he convinced Drew Barrymore to dress up as Marilyn Monroe, who rocked the stage at Madison Square Garden in May 1962 to sing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President.”
Like his mother, who used her immeasurable influence to save Grand Central Terminal from demolition or Central Park from being overshadowed by planned skyscrapers, he was well aware of the power of celebrity, including his own. And how to take advantage of it and use it for things he cared about, like selling magazines or attracting attention and support for a worthy cause. Six years ago, he sent a message to Fashion If the magazine agreed to certain conditions, he would participate in a portrait of Annie Leibovitz and an interview with then-contributing editor William Nowicki. Those conditions were that the article was a profile of the John F. Kennedy Courage Award, established in 1989 to recognize “exemplary acts of political courage by elected officials,” and that the portrait was not of him but of attorney and civil rights activist Elaine R. Jones, who at the time was a member of the award’s voting committee. Perhaps because Norwich couldn’t help himself, he asked Kennedy if he had ever considered running for office. Rather than shouting to the room, “We have a deal,” Kennedy paused and said, “I must admit this is something I think about a lot.”
Will he do this? or he will stay georgea fragile magazine he was determined to succeed at? Will his wife pull together as shrewdly as she did in her first assignment – becoming Mrs. John F. Kennedy Jr. – and seize the opportunities that marriage brings? If so, what are the opportunities?
No one likes questions without answers. Especially these.
