Did Calvin Klein Really Introduce JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette?

No. But she did help her become the face of Calvin Klein. In the first episode of American Love Story, Carolyn Bessette pulls Kate Moss’s headshot out of a pile of rejected photos on Calvin Klein’s desk. Bessette is said to have helped create the look of Calvin Klein’s CK One era, and among her greatest contributions was lobbying—along with art director Fabien Baron—for a then-unknown Kate Moss to appear in a 1992 underwear ad alongside Mark Wahlberg. The resulting TV ad is, to put it in the kindest possible terms, a great reminder that we’ve come a long way as a society in the last 30 years, but it would launch Moss’s career. She would soon go on to become the face of Obsession, and a definitive influence in 1990s fashion in her own right.

Was Equinox a thing back in 1992?

JFK Jr. in Central Park in 1997.

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Yup! But that wasn’t the only place JFK Jr. worked out. While he may or may not have ever taken an aerobics class with Elaine Benes, JFK Jr. spent a lot of time at the gym by all accounts. American Love Story does, too, and the staffer who pops up wearing an Equinox tee in episode two isn’t an anachronism. The high-end fitness chain, which now operates 115 gyms worldwide, launched in 1991 with a single location on Amsterdam at 76th Street in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. According to Judy Taylor, the club’s SVP of PR and philanthropy, JFK Jr. joined the club around 1994. But he probably didn’t run shirtless on the treadmill there, as he does in the opening of episode one—it was, and is, against club policy. He was also frequently seen at the former Downtown Athletic Club in the Financial District, which was much closer to his Tribeca loft (and more consistent with the plot of that Seinfeld episode). He would later become a member of the famed New York Athletic Club in Midtown, too.

Did JFK Jr. really bike around NYC in a suit?

Kelly as JFK Jr. in Love Story.

FX

JFK Jr. biking around New York in 1994.

Mitchell Gerber/Getty Images

He sure did. Part of what made JFK Jr. one of the most photographed men of the 1990s (not to mention People’s Sexiest Man Alive) was his larger-than-life style. His snatched jawline and perfectly textured flow didn’t hurt, of course, but from the way he wore his clothes to his penchant for playing football shirtless in Central Park, he rarely did anything in a conventional way. That includes his preferred mode of transportation: the mountain bike. Per the opening of American Love Story, which includes a copy of GQ from May 1992 on a newsstand, Kennedy’s commuting outfit included a suit, a red backpack, a pair of wire-rimmed shades, and a giant bike chain worn as a belt. Despite this, he’d often forget to lock it up, and was infamous for having his bikes stolen, as depicted at the end of their first date in episode one.