Commit 'fashion murder' at your peril - what the CBK style backlash reveals
Plus: rise of the jabfluencers, and why am I being stalked by meggings?
Greetings from a London so hot it must stop. Oh, it’s fun up to a point - out in Soho this week, everyone was thoroughly overexcited and acting like they were in some version of Italy as a restaurant worker serenaded a stranger on the pavement. I was just waiting for sprinklers to go off NYC cinematic style.
But the daytime? I can do 10 minutes sunbathing on my balcony (A balcony! I know - finally) and then I have to go and lie down in a dark room.
So I have been occupied by the backlash over the upcoming Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy amd JFK Jr TV drama, Love Story - which is focused not so much on what it’s about (although that has some relatives upset), but how it’s styled.
The Guardian summed up the chorus of protest from fans as horror at what’s being termed a “fashion murder”:
CBK of course had incredible style, so no wonder people are freaking out that the test photos recently released are looking a bit sad synthetic Zara, not ice-cool nineties Calvin. Better fashion minds than mine have broken down exactly what has gone wrong. Let’s just say a polyester camel coat does not a style icon make.
I have to say, the JFK Jr looks are not too shabby. But CBK? As one person summed it up:
Showrunner Ryan Murphy has since lashed back at the backlash, arguing that the outfits were only for camera test photos, and not reflective of the wardrobe that will be shown on screen. As he told Variety:
he was taken aback by the negative and sometimes what he feels were sometimes unnecessarily mean-spirited comments. “Carolyn Bessette is cleary a religious figure and it’s a religion of her own,” he told me Wednesday during a phone interview from set. “It’s very interesting that people become so inflammatory.”
But here’s the runway rub about the images – [actors Paul] Kelly and [Sarah] Pidgeon were not wearing anything they’ll be donning on the show. Murphy insists their outfits were thrown together for lighting and color tests but he released the photos — which he captioned on Instagram as “stills from our LOVE STORY camera test” — because he wanted to get ahead of the paparazzi who he was warned would be flocking to the series’ New York City street sets.
That doesn’t quite explain the pap shots taken during filming which have also raised eyebrows for showing our fictional CBK in high-top Converse with a silk midi skirt. (Yes, she did wear Converse, people have established, but was it like this?)
But I am confident of one thing. The CBK style criticism points to something: a lot of people still don’t take fashion seriously - underestimate its power an industry, as a cultural force, or as as a way of communication, even in a visual medium like television, as in this instance. Ignore its influence at our own risk.
And yet, could all publicity be good publicity here: I’ll still be tuning in…
Rise of the jabfluencers (or - why are olympians on Mounjaro)
I know, I know. I keep talking about it. Call it being punished by my algorithms - and I appreciate the dangers of complaining about a feed that your personal habits have built brick by brick, so it’s clearly my doing.
But my socials have turned on me. Instagram, in particular - in the last few months my feed sliding into the bizarre; a man wearing meggings currently haunts it. I have grown quite fond of his commitment to men’s leggings (geddit), in the face of ferocious fashion condemnation - the CBK outcry pales in comparison. But I shall not be buying any meggings, so I wonder what either of us are getting from it really.
On TikTok however, the meggings are absent - there I am being haunted by the new cohort of jabfluencers, the women and men who are sharing their stories of life on the weightloss jabs - the tips, tricks and thoughts. There’s even an ex-Olympian taking aim at calls to rely on “willpower” as she explains why she has turned to the drugs. (Incidentally, Simone Biles was last year a face of Mounjaro in the US through a promo deal, though as an advocate rather than a user herself).
The sheer tide of them suggests they’re finding an audience that isn’t just me.
On one level, it’s interesting: truly, this will be the year - decade? - of two twin revolutions in tech and health, the advent of AI and GLP-1s, with the jury still out on the balance of good and bad each will bring. But on the other hand, good grief. I’ll leave it to my friend, a doctor, who tells me:
it feels like we’re going through a mounjaro epidemic - loads of young female patients on private prescriptions for it, some with normal weights wanting to lose more weight! Thought back to our previous conversations about it & that all celebs were on it 18 months ago but now feels like EVERYONE is on it!
And I really should get off socials.