White shirt, pencil skirt, cashmere sweaters.
Perhaps Meghan Markle thought a wardrobe echoing Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s eternal cool was a fast track to icon status.
It’s easy to see why.
Both were smart, successful thirty somethings who married into two of the world’s biggest dynasties.
The parallels are certainly there — extending most dispiritingly to their unfulfilled potential: Kennedy erased in a plane crash in 1999 with her husband John F. Kennedy Jr.; Markle swallowed up in the sprawl of her Montecito mansion playing the victim.
Yet Bessette Kennedy’s understatement extended beyond her minimalist aesthetic.
In her short time on the ’90s world stage, she never gave an interview.
Meghan, on the other hand, almost immediately summoned Oprah.
Herein lies the difference between icon and pretender, the power of restraint versus blab, the fine line between reverence and ridicule.
Ultimately, it’s why 25 years after her death, Kennedy — a Calvin Klein sales assistant turned publicist — remains an enigma.
A master of stealth wealth well before the Roy family on “Succession,” Kennedy’s minimalist froideur still packs a punch in today’s world of try hard, flesh-flashing celebrity.
This summer sees the release of Elizabeth Beller’s “Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy,” the latest in a line of biographies drip-feeding insight, and often darker revelations of affairs and drug-taking, into an otherwise superficial fairy tale.
Yet nothing really tarnishes Kennedy’s legacy.
Like Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, Kennedy remains frozen in time at her peak, unsullied by family rifts or any fall from grace.
Her trademark remains mystery, aided by an age before social media — in short, Kennedy left them wanting more.
By contrast Markle has looser lips, too much talk, dirty laundry, tit for tat fallouts with her blood and royal relatives.
As she reaches for sophistication, her delivery feels contrived, impatient and ruthless.
As a smart, independent woman, the former “Suits” actress was ready to subvert some of the rules of royalty.
But Markle failed to at least pretend to play by them.
She was free-speaking and unrestrained – forgetting it was their mystique that allowed Kennedy and Diana to become the most compelling characters in their respective courts.
Markle’s version cherry picks elements of both — Bessette Kennedy’s all-American quiet luxe, Diana’s charitable legacy — with her own half-hearted humanitarian pretensions but with far less integrity.
When Bessette Kennedy struggled with press attention, she would retreat to her loft in Tribeca.
The Sussexes, meanwhile, complain about a lack of privacy while constantly revealing both their inner and outer turmoil — often amid a backdrop of their posh Montecito home.
How different it all could have been.
Cast your mind back to 2018, when Harry and Meghan were viewed as a cooler antidote to the more staid William and Kate.
Markle’s future in-laws were spooked – and rightly so.
In the House of Windsor, the ultimate offense is to be upstaged — particularly if hierarchies are breached in the process.
Unease simmered at joint engagements as William and Kate’s plummy platitudes were overshadowed by Meghan’s more fluid and engaging off-the-cuff delivery.
All this promise could have been far better channelled.
After all, Markle was a highly educated, mixed race Diana 2.0 — a photogenic style-crush with beauty and substance to drive global causes with equal doses of passion and purpose.
Instead, Megan pitted herself as oppressed and misunderstood — imperiled by an out-of-touch royal establishment that “failed to protect her.”
When the shackles and gloves finally came off, and she was free to make her own choices, she opted for silly pet projects and high-profile point scoring.
Recently, we’ve had the polo wife in pretty dresses presenting pointless trophies for victories no one cares about.
The launch of her homeware brand, American Riviera Orchard, feels similarly uninspired and derivative — despite the shout-out from Kris Kardashian.
The much-derided strawberry jam — given edition numbers like some important artwork and sent to the usual A-list network — combines all of Markle’s worst traits: the ego, pretensions, social climbing, limpet-like association with fellow rich and powerful.
What’s more, the eloquence and spontaneity that could impress when making school visits or casual speeches have given way to therapy-speak cliches in self-congratulatory podcasts.
Harry and Markle came to fame with all the provenance and potential of Carolyn and John Jr.
But rather than thrive quietly, they reduced themselves to the pursuit of class (and cash!).
Instead of the Kennedys’ quiet luxury, the Sussexes opted for the blingy and the bourgeois.
What a waste.
