On a fall day in 1998, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy stepped out of her Tribeca loft in a camel Prada coat, blue jeans and a slicked-back ponytail to walk her dog, Friday. A paparazzi photographer caught the moment, and the image has been circulating on mood boards ever since.<\/p>\n
Twenty-eight years later, that coat sold at auction for $192,000, more than six times its high estimate and a world record for any garment connected to the late style icon. It\u2019s one of just seven authenticated pieces from her wardrobe ever to come to market \u2014 a remarkably small number for one of the most obsessed-over closets<\/a> of the 20th century.<\/p>\n The full sale, handled by The Fashion Auctioneer<\/a>, brought in $408,750, with every single lot finding a buyer.<\/p>\n Carolyn Bessette Kennedy\u2019s camel Prada coat \u2014 seen here in a 1997 paparazzi shot \u2014 sold for a record $192,000 at auction in March. Sygma via Getty Images<\/p>\n The camel coat is one of just seven authenticated pieces from the late fashoin icon\u2019s closet to ever reach the public. The rest has never surfaced. Getty Images<\/p>\n But unlike the massive, public estates of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis<\/a> or Princess Diana<\/a>, CBK\u2019s wardrobe \u2014 from the Narciso Rodriguez wedding dress<\/a> that reshaped bridal wear to the engagement ring<\/a> JFK Jr. slipped on her finger \u2014 remains a tantalizing mystery.<\/p>\n Where it all ended up, who legally inherited it, and whether any of it will ever resurface are questions that have never been publicly answered \u2014 though estate law, it turns out, offers some surprising clues.<\/p>\n Every one of those seven pieces so far was originally gifted to RoseMarie Terenzio, John F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s longtime assistant and one of the couple\u2019s closest friends. Terenzio \u2014 the author of \u201cJFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography\u201d<\/a> \u2014 has called Bessette Kennedy a \u201cfashion fairy godmother\u201d who would size up a friend\u2019s date-night outfit and say, \u201cCome down, and we\u2019ll pick something out for you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just like, \u2018Oh, that would look good on you,’\u201d Terenzio tells Page Six Style. \u201cIt was like, \u2018You\u2019re gonna feel so good in this.\u2019 She wanted you to feel good in your clothes. She always inspired confidence in people.\u201d<\/p>\n Bessette Kennedy\u2019s wedding dress \u2014 a pearl-white silk cr\u00eape slip by Narciso Rodriguez \u2014 has never surfaced. FX<\/p>\n The sale coincided with FX\u2019s \u201cLove Story,\u201d which reignited a nationwide obsession with the late style muse\u2019s wardrobe. Lawrence Schwartzwald<\/p>\n That generosity extended well beyond her inner circle. One Christmas at George, the magazine JFK Jr. founded, Bessette Kennedy researched every staffer\u2019s interests, style and hobbies and bought each person an individual gift. One colleague who had recently gone vegan got a juicer; another with a boho sensibility received a faux fur handbag.<\/p>\n Lucy Bishop, the auctioneer who handled the recent sale, tells Page Six Style she first tracked Terenzio down years ago after recalling an old interview in which the former assistant mentioned owning some of Carolyn\u2019s clothes. <\/p>\n Terenzio says she parted with pieces she no longer wore in the hope that they\u2019d find an appreciative home. \u201cIf somebody could enjoy it and remember her, then that would be a good thing,\u201d she tells us. She donated a portion of the auction proceeds to Hearts of Gold<\/a>, a nonprofit supporting homeless mothers and their children.<\/p>\n The two camel Prada coats in the sale \u2014 including the record-breaking lot \u2014 weren\u2019t actually in Terenzio\u2019s possession; she had passed them along to another close friend, Michele Ammon. But she does still have other items Bessette Kennedy gave her \u2014 though she\u2019s protective of the details.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to name what I have, and I don\u2019t want to say where I keep them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n All seven pieces were originally gifted to RoseMarie Terenzio, JFK Jr.\u2019s longtime assistant and one of the couple\u2019s closest friends. Gallery Books<\/p>\n Terenzio says Bessette Kennedy would style friends head to toe and \u201calways inspired confidence in people.\u201d Getty Images<\/p>\n Bessette Kennedy\u2019s wardrobe, by all accounts, was tightly edited.<\/p>\n \u201cShe didn\u2019t have this giant, expensive wardrobe. She had a closet,\u201d Terenzio says. \u201cIf she bought a cardigan at Prada, she was wearing it over and over again.\u201d She was just as likely to hunt for T-shirts in the Gap\u2019s kids\u2019 section or browse Pearl River as she was to shop at Yohji Yamamoto or specialty stores like Charivari, Bagutta and Linda Dresner.<\/p>\n \u201cCarolyn could be sentimental about a plastic ring you bought her at a flea market, and she would treasure it because you thought about her and it came from you,\u201d Terenzio says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t really about a price tag. It was more about just her spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n The four pieces originally gifted to Terenzio weren\u2019t the only lots in the sale. Twenty additional vintage garments came from an anonymous collector, who acquired them from an eBay seller in 2017. That seller claimed they were originally obtained from a staffer at JFK Jr.\u2019s magazine, George \u2014 but Bishop has been unable to verify the chain of custody, and says so in the auction catalog.<\/p>\n Those pieces do have another claim to fame, however: Several were loaned to the hit FX series \u201cLove Story,\u201d and worn by Sarah Pidgeon in her role as Bessette Kennedy.<\/p>\n The provenance gap didn\u2019t seem to matter to many buyers, either: A Prada skirt and boots estimated at $2,000 to $3,000 sold for $30,000.<\/p>\n Sarah Pidgeon wore vintage pieces from a private collector\u2019s archive while portraying Bessette Kennedy in the hit FX series \u201cLove Story.\u201d Eric Liebowitz\/FX<\/p>\n The Calvin Klein pieces Bessette Kennedy wore as the brand\u2019s star publicist have never come to market or been exhibited by a museum. Patrick McMullan via Getty Images<\/p>\n Bishop tells us the sale drew interest from around the world: \u201cIt really was a mix between fans and fashion-loving women, but also really serious private collectors, museums and institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n The appetite for Bessette Kennedy\u2019s wardrobe has been building for years; designer Sarah Staudinger, founder of the fashion label Staud, purchased three CBK pieces \u2014 a black Prada coat, a vintage leopard-print coat and a Yohji Yamamoto jacket \u2014 at Sotheby\u2019s in 2024 for a combined $177,600, according to WWD<\/a>.<\/p>\n Still, all of this combined barely scratches the surface of a closet that has been studied and coveted for more than a quarter-century. The Calvin Klein pieces from her years as the brand\u2019s star publicist<\/a>. The Manolo Blahnik heels. The Birkin. The Levi\u2019s 517s<\/a>. And above all, the wedding dress. The question of who ended up with the contents of the couple\u2019s Tribeca loft has never been publicly answered.<\/p>\n JFK Jr.\u2019s will, signed in December 1997, left all of his tangible property to Carolyn \u2014 on the condition that she survive him by 30 days. Because the couple died simultaneously in the July 1999 plane crash, his belongings passed to the next beneficiaries: Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg\u2019s three children, Jack, Rose and Tatiana.<\/p>\n Carolyn\u2019s belongings, however, are a separate matter \u2014 and they almost certainly didn\u2019t go to the Kennedy side at all.<\/p>\n JFK Jr.\u2019s will left his property to his wife, but only if she survived him by 30 days; the couple died simultaneously in a July 1999 plane crash. Sygma via Getty Images<\/p>\n Under New York intestacy law, Bessette Kennedy\u2019s belongings would have passed to her parents, Ann Freeman and William Bessette. John Barrett\/Photolink\/Mediapunch \/ Shutterstock<\/p>\n \u201cCaroline Kennedy Schlossberg had no legal relationship with her sister-in-law,\u201d Herb Nass, a trusts and estates partner at Davis+Gilbert LLP, tells Page Six Style. He has reviewed JFK Jr.\u2019s will but did not represent any of the parties.<\/p>\n Press reports<\/a> from the time confirm that Bessette Kennedy died without a will. Without one, Carolyn\u2019s estate \u2014 including her personal wardrobe, her engagement ring and any other belongings in her name \u2014 would have passed to her next of kin under New York intestacy law: her parents, Ann Freeman and William Bessette, in equal shares.<\/p>\n \u201cThe engagement ring \u2014 she owned. He gave it to her,\u201d Nass says. \u201cThat would have passed as her property, not back to the Kennedy family, but would have passed to her intestate distributees \u2014 her mom and her dad.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tShop \u2019til you drop with Post Wanted\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSave time and money with the latest deals, discounts, trends, reviews and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n In other words, the most likely path for Carolyn\u2019s closet leads not to the Kennedy compound but to the Bessette family. Freeman died in 2007. William Bessette, now in his early 80s, has never given press interviews. The only surviving member of Bessette Kennedy\u2019s immediate family is her older sister, Lisa Bessette, 61, who lives a determinedly private life in Ann Arbor, Mich.<\/p>\n Lisa\u2019s stepfather, Richard Freeman, told The Post in 2019: \u201cWe never cooperate with the media, no interviews, no questions, and that is still our position.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a family that has made clear it wants to be left alone \u2014 which may explain why the wardrobe has never materialized.<\/p>\n The late style muse\u2019s older sister, Lisa Bessette, 61, has never spoken publicly about her sister and lives privately in Ann Arbor, Mich. William Regan\/Globe Photos via ZUMA Wire \/ Shutterstock<\/p>\n \u201cI think the wedding dress is a very important item to American fashion history,\u201d auctioneer Lucy Bishop says. \u201cI would imagine the family has it.\u201d FX<\/p>\n Bishop argues that whoever has the pieces should be consulting an expert regardless of their plans for them. \u201cEven if they may not wish to sell the pieces, they will likely need an insurance valuation,\u201d she says. There is also the matter of caring for the pieces correctly, which takes specialized expertise.<\/p>\n The market \u2014 supercharged by \u201cLove Story\u201d \u2014 only makes that case more urgent. Bishop, who previously handled Princess Diana pieces at Sotheby\u2019s, has watched that market soar. A decade ago, the average sold price for a Diana piece hovered around $50,000; now, she says, it\u2019s closer to $1 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n As for the Narciso Rodriguez wedding dress \u2014 the piece any auction house would consider a career-defining consignment \u2014 Bishop is hopeful but realistic.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the wedding dress is a very important item to American fashion history,\u201d she says. \u201cI would imagine the family has it.\u201d<\/p>\n Terenzio agrees. \u201cI\u2019m sure it\u2019s being very carefully cared for, whoever has it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Bishop says it would be a dream to help advise on the piece one day: \u201cI think it\u2019s unlikely, but you never know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a fall day in 1998, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy stepped out of her Tribeca loft in a camel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,135121,22978,361,362,75,282,1187,150057,81080],"class_list":["post-548420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-caroline-kennedy","tag-carolyn-bessette-kennedy","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrity-news","tag-entertainment","tag-exclusive","tag-fashion","tag-john-f-kennedy-jr","tag-page-six-style"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}