2 min readFashion Week is often a surreal experience—the fishbowl of fame, fabric, and endless matcha refills will usually knock you sideways. But the week’s otherworldly quality reached new heights last night at the Khaite show, when Violet Grey founder Cassandra Grey wore Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s black Yohji Yamamoto suit from 1998 in the front row while Sarah Pidgeon, the actress playing Bessette Kennedy in the hotly debated TV drama Love Story, sat a few feet away.
Grey said she was given the suit by her best friend Carole Radziwill, the acclaimed international journalist and memoirist also known to Bravo junkies as a Real Housewife of New York. “Carole and Carolyn were best friends, and related by marriage. They were kind of sisters, really. So she still has some of her clothing,” Grey exclusively told ELLE.
Cassandra Grey in Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s 1998 Yohji Yamamoto suit.
“She gave the suit to me about 15 years ago, and I was just amazed. I still am. It’s iconic. It’s sexy but demure. I wear it anytime I’m going to an event, usually a fashion event, where I know I need to be the chicest version of myself.” Grey paired the suit with Khaite gloves and heels.
“I never met Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, sadly,” Grey continued. “But I feel like I did because Carole’s memoir is really a love story about their friendship. People still have such affection for her, because she was so beautiful but also because anyone who knew her understood she was great, you know? Funny. Kind. I think wearing the suit honors that and it honors her appreciation of Yohji and great design, which she loved.”
Cassandra Grey and Sarah Pidgeon, who plays Carolyn Bessette Kennedy in FX’s Love Story, at Khaite’s fall/winter 2026 show in New York City on Feb. 14, 2026.
That theme of considered, near-hypnotic design—especially the clean lines and the black-on-brown-on-blue knitwear that Bessette Kennedy piled up to face the paparazzi—was reflected on the Khaite runway with kicky charcoal trousers, origami-necked capes, and inky A-line skirts, which belong to the same cool-girl family as Yohji Yamamoto’s beloved ’90s collections.
Just before the show began, Grey said hello to Pidgeon and explained the provenance of her suit. “Oh wow,” Pidgeon said with a wide smile. “I know that suit. It’s unbelievable. It’s perfect.”