So, I’ve been going down this rabbit hole, you know? Thinking about Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s style. Everyone’s always like, “Oh, 90s minimalism, so chic.” And yeah, sure, it was. But I started feeling like that was just scratching the surface. There was something else going on there, something deeper than just beige slip dresses, you get me?
My Little Investigation
I began pulling up old photos, reading whatever I could find. And the name Yohji Yamamoto kept kinda… hovering. Not like she was exclusively wearing his stuff head-to-toe all the time, because that wasn’t it. But the feeling of his work, that’s what started to click for me. I’d look at Yohji’s designs – all that black, the volume, the way fabric just moved – and then I’d look back at CBK. It wasn’t a direct copy, but like a shared wavelength.
It really hit me when I was trying to explain this to my sister. She’s younger, super into whatever’s trending on TikTok, you know? I showed her some pics of Carolyn, and she was like, “Yeah, she looks nice. Plain, but nice.” And that “plain” just bugged me! Because it wasn’t plain, it was intentional. So, my “practice,” if you wanna call it that, became trying to figure out how to explain why it wasn’t just plain. That’s what got me really digging into the Yohji connection.
What I Think I Found
So I started really looking at Yohji’s whole philosophy. This dude wasn’t just making clothes; he was making statements. Things like:
- A kind of protection. His clothes often had this vibe of shielding the wearer, creating a space for them. Not about showing off the body, but about inhabiting the clothes.
- Playing with shape. Not always figure-hugging. Lots of interesting silhouettes, sometimes asymmetrical, sometimes oversized. But it never looked sloppy, it looked considered.
- Love of fabric. You could just tell the material was important. How it draped, how it felt. Not flashy, but quality.
- Anti-fashion fashion. He was kind of a rebel against the super glam, over-the-top stuff of the 80s, and that carried into the 90s.
And when I thought about those things, I saw echoes in CBK’s choices. Even if the tag said Prada or Narciso Rodriguez, there was that same spirit. That quiet confidence, that sense of the clothes serving her, not the other way around. It wasn’t about being trendy; it was about a personal, strong point of view. She wore simple shapes, sure, but the cut, the fabric, the way she carried herself – it had that Yohji-esque gravity, that thoughtfulness.
It’s Not Just About Copying
The thing is, lots of people try to get that “CBK look” now, right? They buy a black turtleneck and some straight-leg trousers and think they’ve nailed it. But often, it just looks… flat. And I think it’s because they’re missing that Yohji-ish underpinning. They’re copying the surface, not the substance. It’s like trying to make a complex dish with only half the ingredients, and none of the understanding of why those ingredients work together.
It’s more than just a color palette. It’s an attitude. It’s about clothes that feel good, that last, that aren’t screaming for attention but still make you look twice. It’s that feeling of being perfectly put together without looking like you tried too hard, which is, ironically, really hard to achieve if you are trying too hard with the wrong things.
So yeah, that’s what I’ve been mulling over. This whole CBK and Yohji Yamamoto thing isn’t a direct line, like A+B=C. It’s more like they were both tuned into a similar frequency. And trying to understand that has definitely made me look at my own closet, and how I think about getting dressed, in a whole new light. It’s less about chasing trends now, and more about finding those pieces that have that kind of quiet strength, that Yohji spirit. That’s my takeaway from this whole exploration.
