There are a lot of little elements, let alone the final cumulative impact of the roulette of pictures, via which tragedy maestro Ryan Murphy introduced Sarah Pidgeon, the actor who will be portraying Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, wife to John F Kennedy Jr, and the ultimate understated it-girl of the 90, in the producer’s new anthology series, American Love Story.
Now while such mammoth casting moments may take a beat to settle into the audience’s conscience — if you aren’t already aware, JFK Jr and Carolyn were one of America’s most beloved couples, their tragic deaths further cementing the sentiment — Ryan’s vision of JFK Jr and Carolyn, is managing to achieve quite the opposite.
Recently, footage and on-set snaps of Sarah, running around New York City, decked in what we are assuming is one rendition of Carolyn’s street-strut looks, made their way on to the internet. And everyone is either cringing or scrunching up their eyebrows, because…it’s just not giving. As though the latex leather, and the assertively sheen-ful gold satin skirt (Carolyn groupies know being loud was NOT her aesthetic) wasn’t enough, the fact that Sarah was running around in a pair of Converse, is a pretty crisis-ridden point for the fashion community. The final straw? The hair, oh the hair.
Carolyn’s sharp, minimal dressing always stood accentuated by her soft cascading, and more importantly, warm-toned blonde locks, though her pale skin and occasional all-neutral fits may have made her hair seem lighter than it was. Sarah on the other hand, has a head full of near-platinum blonde locks. And people aren’t having it.
In a chat with Vogue, Carolyn’s former hair colourist, Brad Johns, who was quite the hot stuff in the 90s — the best in his field — didn’t mince any words at all. Firstly, Brad wasn’t even aware the Carolyn was being brought back to life for the screens. So when he saw the pair launch, Brad’s unfiltered reaction went, “No one would believe that Carolyn in the ’90s would ever have that color from me. It’s too 2024”.
Now if you think achieving that level of icon-hood came with a simple global dye job, you’re sorely mistaken. Brad signed, “We worked really hard to get right”. He built up her natural light brown locks to a “toffee” shade reminiscent of a “child-of-the-beach” vibe. The toffee shade was worked in with his signature chunking technique, “I went in and put the highlight chunks in three foils around the front of her face, and then two underneath for when she wore her hair up”.
And what did Brad have to say about Sarah’s hair for American Love Story? “Totally wrong, the opposite of what we were going for”, he shared promptly, adding, “If you show that on TV and fashion people see it, they are going to think, why is she all ashed out with her hair only one color?”.
With the OG expert on the matter having doubled down on the bone of contention…may be its time for Ryan to reconsider the hair and costume department for American Love Story?