You will have seen the news that an unauthorised biography on Gwyneth Paltrow – written by Amy Odell, who wrote Anna Wintour’s biography, is out today.
It includes all the salacious details you’d expect: her all-star upbringing as the child of two Hollywood stars, Bruce Paltrow and Blythe Danner; her relationship and subsequent breakup from Brad Pitt – who didn’t know his beluga from his oscietra caviar (so embarrassing); and how Ben Affleck is “technically excellent” in bed.
One unexpected detail, however, emerges about a quarter of the way in when Odell details a trip Gwyneth took to Calvin Klein’s New York HQ ahead of filming Sliding Doors.
In the 1998 film, she plays Helen, who gets fired from her public relations job. The movie then splits into two narratives: in one, Helen misses the train home; in the other, she makes it. It’s a meditation on fate that argues that what’s meant to be will always find a way.
The film’s costume designer, Jill Taylor, travelled to New York to talk to Gwyneth about Helen’s wardrobe and explain she didn’t have much budget. Of course, Gwyneth swept in and took control of the situation. She explained she’d been a regular at Calvin Klein’s head office, and made an appointment to view their range.
Before the days of celebrity stylists, A-listers would strike up relationships with brands, who would then happily oblige them when they needed to be dressed.
According to Odell, Carolyn Bessette (not yet Bessette-Kennedy) didn’t much appreciate Gwyneth’s frequent visits to the office, where they would roll out racks and racks of clothes for her to choose from.
As one of the brand’s publicists, Bessette was apparently “irked” by Gwyneth. She was a few years into dating John F. Kennedy Jr. at this point, and a year or so off marrying him and leaving her job.
Odell spoke to someone “familiar with [Bessette’s] thinking”, who said that when pictures of Gwyneth appeared in the newspapers or on tabloids, Bessette would make cutting remarks about her and call her “little miss perfect”.
That two high-profile women (or in Bessette’s case back then, high-profile by association) living in New York in the 1990s who moved in the same professional and social circles didn’t get along is not unusual.
But that they would both become myths of a golden era of fashion and their minimalist It-girl style would be highly coveted by the same sect of fashion lovers 30 years later is more than a little ironic.
There’s probably one thing they would agree on: the styling for Ryan Murphy’s biopic American Love Story about Bessette and Kennedy’s love story, from when they met until they both tragically died in a plane crash in 1999, is not it.
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