Category: Ryan Murphy

For years, Ryan Murphy has been talking about producing a miniseries on John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. He’s finally doing it as an extension of his “American” franchises, and this one will be “American Love Story.” A few months ago, he cast Paul Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon as John and Carolyn. Then one week ago, Murphy’s team published a “screen test” with the actors, and photos of the actors “in character.” The photos and video were torn to shreds by pretty much everyone. People loathed the fashion choices for faux-Carolyn, and a million “thinkpieces” have been written in the past week about everything Murphy’s team is doing wrong. Well, Murphy is speaking out.

Ryan Murphy wants the Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy fashion fandom to know that he won’t disappoint them. The television impresario faced fashionista backlash last week when he posted a first look of “American Love Story” stars Paul Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon in what appeared to be full wardrobe and makeup as John F. Kennedy Jr. and Bessette-Kennedy.

The Cut’s takedown of the images and videos blazed with the headline, “These Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy Costumes Don’t Fit the Bill.” The accompanying essay trashed the looks as appearing to be fast-fashion knockoffs of Bessette-Kennedy’s high designer style. “I feel like I’m looking at Mango and Zara,” The Cut’s fashion news writer Danya Issawi wrote in part. “There is no life, there is no story, there is no familiarity with these pieces.” Like many others, Issawi criticized the jeans, jacket and shoes Pidgeon was wearing as well as her accompanying Birkin. She also wrote that she reached out to the show for clarification.

Murphy admits 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 – Kelly and 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. Filming began earlier this week and is expected to run through late October or early fall.

“There were comments like, ‘I hate that coat, Carolyn would never have worn that,’” Murphy says. “That was just a coat we threw on for color. People were writing, ‘How dare you use the No. 35 Birkin bag? She wore a 40!’ Yes, we have a 40 but we just threw on a bag from another costume department because that was the sound stage we were on.”

In fact, Murphy says he has enlisted a 10-person “style advisory board” to help reference and source Carolyn’s wardrobe. The names of the board members will be released at a later date when all their contracts are signed. The production has actually bought some clothing that belonged to Bessette-Kennedy. A replica of the Narciso Rodriguez wedding dress she wore when she and JFK Jr. married in 1996 is being built from scratch. Murphy lists off some of costume designer Lou Eyrich’s ever-increasing inventory: “We have multiple pairs of Manolo black heels and sandals from 1992 to 1999. We have the Manolo boots she wore in black and brown. We have her Prada tall boots. We have her Prada bags. We have the Birkin No. 40 that we have taken to a specialist to scruff it up so it looks identical to the one she would wear half-open on the subway.”

Sadly, Murphy believes, scrutiny hurled at the show’s Carolyn is eerily similar in to how the media and public treated Bessette-Kennedy. “We’re writing a story about a person – an unknown person – who falls in love with the most famous man in the world and suddenly she can’t leave her house,” Ryan says. “She was constantly being photographed, being called a c–t by the paparazzi.” Her every move and fashion choice was dissected ad nauseum. “They’re doing to our Carolyn, what they did to the real-life Carolyn,” Murphy says. “It’s not fair.”

[From Variety]

Murphy also complained about a Vogue interview with hairstylist Brad Johns, who did Carolyn’s hair – Johns trashed Faux-Carolyn’s blonde, saying in part “why the f–k is she all ashed out with her hair only one color?” Murphy pointed out that Sarah Pidgeon was wearing a WIG in those photos. Anyway, well done, everyone. I think the fashion/hair/Birkin bag community has successfully bullied Ryan Murphy into taking this sh-t seriously and hiring more fashion historians who will (at the very least) get Carolyn’s clothes correct. Murphy is now aware that they need to get her blonde shade perfect too.

Photos courtesy of Ryan Murphy Productions’ IG and Cover Images.