Photographer Hannah La Follette Ryan publishes an incredible monthly street style column for Shop Rat called “Subway Rat.” Below is her latest. Enjoy! — Emilia
There’s an It-girl industrial complex in NYC right now. Maybe you’ve seen Ryan Murphy’s compulsively watchable Love Story telenovella about JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s entanglement. Maybe you haven’t. Either way, you’ve likely witnessed the live action fanfic of their lives play out on the streets of New York in the weeks since the show’s premiere: women decked out in bespoke tortoise shell headbands, slim oval sunglasses, and clean girl aesthetic minimalism, with ‘90s era blowouts achieving peak “glass hair.”
To wander through the West Village right now is to catch echoes of Bessette Kennedy’s uniform and silhouette, infinitely refracted through TikToks and style dissections in fashion magazines. There’s been a standing bottleneck at the C.O. Bigelow hairclip counter since the show first aired on February 12, where the real CBK dodged paparazzi to buy her infamous headbands. Selima Optique on Wooster Street is flooded with patrons wanting to buy her “Carolyn” sunglasses.
During Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s lifetime, her singular qualities were eclipsed by her supernova husband. Today, their power imbalance is being radically redressed. Sarah Pidgeon’s knockout CBK performance gives a captivating voice to the reluctant star of the 90s’ most iconic paparazzi imagery. In the show, Carolyn’s magnetism is further amplified by JFK Jr.’s himbo treatment and the bizarrely mean-spirited caricature of Daryl Hannah. The painful irony, though, is that the real CBK left no ambiguity that it would be her personal nightmare to be the subject of a viral miniseries. Like many female celebrities of her day, her relationship with the press, specifically the paparazzi, was agonizing.
On a recent Sunday, I chanced upon the JFK Jr. lookalike competition in Washington Square Park. One corner of the park was packed with young women onlookers who took their roles as CBK acolytes much more seriously than the JFK Jr. impersonators. It felt like entering a TikTok algorithm. This crowd had an entirely different relationship with the camera, posing cheerfully with the contestants. In fact, the photo shoots lasted far longer than the brief and anticlimactic competition.
In 2026, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy is a pop culture style icon, and the political careers of her husband’s relatives are no longer a foregone conclusion. After a month of chatting up stylish blondes, I concluded CBK is on nearly everyone’s moodboard. The booming CBK-style economy straddles a timeless aesthetic, historical reenactment, and 90’s nostalgia. But other women of her period wore tortoiseshell accessories and slip dresses. Carolyn’s era-defining looks crucially radiated a fierce independence. Her outfits were greater than the sum of their parts. It’s a joy to see those who understand that and celebrate her spark.
Here’s more of what I saw.
— Hannah
Hannah La Follette Ryan is a Brooklyn-based artist and educator from Amherst, MA. Her Subway Hands series has been featured in dozens of publications in the US and abroad. She freelances for New York magazine and The Nation and has collaborated with Boy Genius, Valentino, the Guggenheim, and many others.
You can read all of her “Subway Rat” columns here.
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