Her fashion sense will never go out of style — especially at this Manhattan store.
A SoHo vintage shop went viral this week for revealing that Carolyn Bessette Kennedy shopped there in the ’90s — and it was the fashion icon’s go-to for her signature Levi’s jeans.
What Goes Around Comes Around’s West Broadway location was just an eight minute walk from the Tribeca loft Carolyn shared with her husband, John F. Kennedy Jr., so she stopped in every couple of months to browse its collection.
“She was just so very polite and so sweet. She was just really respectful, none of the kind of type of attitude you might expect from someone in their position,” the store’s CEO and co-founder Seth Weisser told The Post.
“She bought a lot of Levi’s from us because Levi’s was the go-to for every ‘It Girl’ and still is. She was early in that appreciation of what that was.”
So when it came time to dress Sarah Pidgeon, the actress who plays Carolyn in the FX and Hulu miniseries “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette,” Weisser was called upon to collaborate with the show’s costume department to find vintage pieces that fit Carolyn’s classic style.
“They came in and bought some jeans and some Tom Ford pieces from the Gucci era,” he said.
Pidgeon has countless costume changes on the series, which airs its finale on March 26, so Weisser has found it difficult to distinguish which articles of clothing are from his store.
“There’s a lot of wardrobe and the pieces are a little bit simple. I’ve seen her in Levi’s. I’m presuming they could be our Levi’s,” he said.
Even though Carolyn purchased different styles of jeans, their bootcut Levi’s 517 — which range from $150 to $750 — were her favorites, Weisser, a Long Island native, said.
The blonde beauty also bought gowns for the many events she attended with her other half, “to have a dress at the ball that nobody else was showing up in.
“She was very smart in terms of like, she was being photographed all the time, so got cool pieces that wouldn’t be ones that anybody could go run around the block and buy at Bloomingdales,” he said.
Carolyn worked at Calvin Klein for close to a decade until she quit in 1996, the year she married John, so was ahead of her time when it came to vintage.
“When we started our business, vintage was not what vintage is today,” said Weisser, who opened What Goes Around Comes Around in 1993.
“The fashion industry was our first customer group. So her coming from Calvin, she knew the value of vintage and was always really appreciative of what we did.”
Carolyn shopped alone or with friends, and while Weisser did not recall JFK Jr. ever coming inside, he may once have waited outside for her to finishing her shopping spree.
“I feel like one time they were together walking the dog, and I feel like he didn’t come in, but he was sitting on my stairs,” he said.
Weisser has since expanded the business to include locations on Wooster Street and in Beverly Hills, and works with countless celebrity clients — such as Lenny Kravitz, Rihanna and A$AP Rocky, the Beckham family, and Kendall Jenner.
He said Carolyn was an influencer way before social media even existed — and is partly responsible for the store’s growth.
“She was an early influencer of fashion trends by going against what was being offered from the mainstream fashion [world],” he said.
“Through word of mouth was how our business grew so organically. So through her friends and her social circles, because she was wearing cool pieces, she told people about us and it was part of how we’ve grown to last as long as we have.”
Read the full article here
