A wide and tightfitting hair accessory favoured by the wife of John F Kennedy, Jr, has become a hot fashion commodity, 25 years after her death. Photo: The New York Times
Nicole Nigro, a 24-year-old software engineer in Brooklyn, was not yet born when a plane crash killed John F Kennedy Jr (son of US president John F Kennedy), his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette on July 16, 1999.
But Bessette-Kennedy was at the top of Nigro’s mind recently when she went to Zitomer, an upscale pharmacy on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, looking for a headband she saw in TikTok videos.
Specifically, a tortoiseshell headband that is 1.375 inches (3.5 centimetres) wide, costs US$35 (approximately RM156) and has been linked to Bessette-Kennedy because she was photographed wearing it multiple times before she died at 33.
In the 25 years since, Bessette-Kennedy, a former publicist at Calvin Klein, has for many people functioned as a posthumous fashion influencer.
Some of them, like Nigro, learned about her through social media posts highlighting Bessette-Kennedy’s preference for minimalist clothing “simple and timeless”, as Nigro put it).
But unlike Bessette-Kennedy’s clothes from designer labels like Yohji Yamamoto and Prada – some of which are on auction at Sotheby’s – the tortoiseshell headbands offer an accessible way to emulate her style.
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They have been branded the “CBK headband” online and by some fashion publications, a term that is used to describe both the exact style worn by Bessette-Kennedy and other tortoiseshell headbands of varying widths, colours and makers.
The headbands she wore are made by Charles J Wahba, a label founded in New York City in 1959.
Handmade in France of acetate, its headbands can fit tightly, but are said to mold to the shape of a wearer’s head. They are sold at other luxurious pharmacies, including CO Bigelow in Greenwich Village, where Bessette-Kennedy is said to have bought her headbands.
But no store has sold them longer than Zitomer, where Bessette-Kennedy is said to have shopped as well (for shampoo and scrunchies).
The nearly 75-year-old pharmacy, which is known for its extensive selection of hair accessories, has carried the label’s headbands, claw clips and barrettes since 1976.
On the day that Nigro visited Zitomer to find a headband, Shreya Bhide, 28, also stopped by to look for one.
“It was what – like one century, a half a century ago?” Bhide, a software engineer in San Jose, California, said of the era when Bessette-Kennedy wore the accessory.
While only a quarter century ago, it was a time before people’s daily lives were documented online. Photos taken of Bessette-Kennedy and articles written about her before she died are some of the only ways to get a peek at her life.
This picture shows the Charles J Wahba headbands at Zitomer in New York. Photo: The New York Times
That may be part of her allure among younger people, said Mimi Stillman, a 28-year-old freelance video producer in Columbus, Ohio.
“I’m not old enough to recall her, but I think it’s so interesting her aura has transcended to my generation,” said Stillman, who bought a Wahba headband at Zitomer in July and documented the purchase in a TikTok video.
“There are no new photos; I would like to know more about her.”
This year, Zitomer has tripled its inventory of Wahba hair products, partly because of the headband’s popularity, said Sharon Sternheim, the pharmacy’s owner.
Sternheim added that she has “never seen such a young crowd coming into the store”. She estimated that lately, more than half of its weekend customers had been under 40.
Joey Wahba, who runs the hair accessories label started by and named for his father, said the surge of interest in its headband associated with Bessette-Kennedy had resulted in an uptick in sales: The company has sold some 10,000 this year, about 10 times more than it did in 2023.
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In addition to pharmacies like Zitomer and CO Bigelow, Wahba items are sold at roughly 80 locations nationwide, including hair salons.
The company itself does not sell items online, however – it doesn’t have a website or any social media accounts.
“It’s amazing she became someone that today’s generation admires,” Wahba said of Bessette-Kennedy.
Those admirers include actress Annabelle Dexter-Jones, 38, who on a phone call recalled glimpsing Bessette-Kennedy in the crowd at the Calvin Klein fashion shows that Dexter-Jones attended as a child with her mother, Ann Dexter-Jones, a jewellery designer.
Annabelle Dexter-Jones, who grew up in New York and is a longtime Zitomer customer, said she has purchased dozens of tortoiseshell headbands at the pharmacy, including Wahba styles.
She added that Bessette-Kennedy’s appearance partly informed that of Naomi Pierce, the publishing heiress Dexter-Jones played on HBO’s Succession.
“I think her style is timeless and Zitomer is timeless and that’s what is so appealing about those headbands,” she said. – ©2024 The New York Times Company
