As anticipation builds ahead of FX's Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette -- which is set to premiere on February 12 -- the upcoming limited series exploring one of America's most scrutinized yet dazzling couples, online fashion watchers are already delivering their verdicts.
Several eagle-eyed creators have zeroed in, not on the expected plot lines or predicted performances, but on the series' costume design that many fear will fail to capture the precision and elegance that defined John F. Kennedy Jr.'s and Carolyn Bessette‑Kennedy's enduring style legacy.
Much of the conversation online has focused on Bessette-Kennedy, who became a fashion magazine mainstay during her short life and was a frontrunner of chic '90s minimalism. Newsweek wrote about her "cool, seductive style" in 1999.
"The styling of Carolyn Bessette in the new Ryan Murphy series is so far off it's insulting," one creator, who goes by @thecarpetcritic on Instagram, said in a post to the platform after the first wave of images from FX's forthcoming series began ricocheting across social media back in 2025.
"What should have been a love letter to a style icon feels like a rushed mood board made from a Zara clearance rack," the creator continued. "It's giving lighting test, not CBK level elegance. Her looks are archived, documented and referenced endlessly and we get this?"
It was a withering verdict -- one that landed less like a casual hot take and more like a notice of violation, one that was echoed by the internet's self-appointed continuity editors. Within the same volley, the creator picked apart the texture and tone of the garments seen in first-look photographs, bringing up a dreaded phrase in fashion circles, one that is inextricably linked to 2020s clothing: "polyblend."
The shade of U.S. actress Sarah Pidgeon's hair as she takes on the coveted role was also called into question.
"Carolyn's signature blonde wasn't some icy 2024 tone," the creator added.
The post gathered momentum, pulling in more than 22,000 likes, while one commenter's mark of agreement -- "They literally have all the information in front of them and they fumbled it" -- was liked over 3,900 times, capturing the mood of the unified comment section.
The series -- starring Paul Anthony Kelly as John F. Kennedy Jr. and Tiny Beautiful Things' Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy -- is the first installment in Ryan Murphy's new Love Story anthology and is inspired by Elizabeth Beller's biography Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. But long before viewers can judge the performances, plot, or pacing, fashion creators have been combing through the series' visual cues.
There is a particular legitimacy and electricity to the fan scrutiny online because the couple at the center of the drama series have long existed in public memory through the lens of glamour and tragedy.
Kennedy, the son of former President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, became a lawyer and publisher, founding the now-defunct political magazine George, while Bessette-Kennedy rose up through the fashion world to become a senior publicist for Calvin Klein. She was admired for a personal stye that still makes its way onto "quiet luxury" Pinterest boards today. The couple's marriage, in turn, became a national obsession, often buffeted by relentless media attention.
To the online jury, the costumes matter greatly because Bessette-Kennedy was famous for her style, one which has turned into a reference library -- photographed, catalogued, endlessly reinterpreted -- following her unexpected death. Their complaint is not simply that a skirt hem in first-look images feels off; it is that the series could miss the markers that made Bessette-Kennedy's style intentional, unique and forever linked to her.
On TikTok, another creator, @liveedevita, offered her own analysis.
"A key point of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's style was that everything she wore was very structured," she told viewers, before pulling up an image of Pidgeon on set as Bessette-Kennedy in a loose-fitting satin skirt styled with Converse sneakers.
"I don't know if she would ever wear those shoes with this," she added.
The critique implied that Bessette-Kennedy's looks depended on fine tailoring and cannot be compared to the slouchier more contemporary "off-duty" touches that dominate modern street style.
Another creator, @glowupu, took a sharper tone while sharing images from the filming and costuming process.
"Respectfully, what the hell is this," she said, in an overlaid video on a set image of Pidgeon in a camel coat and black trousers.
When Vogue Netherlands reshared the trailer to TikTok on February 3, viewers brought the same energy to the account’s comment section.
“This looks sterile and modern. Doesn’t evoke the era at all,” one disappointed viewer said. Another went straight to the point: “Costume design is terrible and doesn’t reflect how stylish Carolyn was IRL.”
The criticism has, at times, widened into something closer to cultural commentary. Another account, @carolynsallure, reshared the trailer on February 3, prompting one viewer to comment that the styling reads “modern” precisely because Bessette-Kennedy’s look has become so influential to modern fans that it now feels contemporary.
“It’s giving modern because everyone LITERALLY wears what she’s wearing nowadays. It’s the ‘old money look’ everyone craves,” the viewer said.
Still, even amid the pile-on, there is one important qualifier. Several of the most-circulated images that attracted the most scrutiny online appear to be early set photos from the filming process.
These snapshots are unlikely to reflect the final, edited version audiences will actually see. The outfits that look questionable in those earlier shots may have been replaced or could read differently once contextualized by scene, lighting, and performance. The internet, however, rarely waits for post-production to conclude.
FX is betting that the larger story -- the "undeniable chemistry" and "whirlwind courtship" promised in its official teaser -- will outmuscle the pre-release nitpicking by fashion purists.
The series also arrives with a high-profile supporting cast that includes Naomi Watts as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Grace Gummer as Caroline Kennedy, and Alessandro Nivola as Calvin Klein, among others.
As for viewers less invested in the fabrics used to recreate Bessette-Kennedy's most recognizable looks, some have been more positive about the casting of Pidgeon as Bessette-Kennedy.
The series' stakes are sharpened by an ending all Americans already know.
The New York-based couple married in 1996 and died in 1999 when the plane Kennedy was piloting crashed off Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Their untimely death froze them at the height of their youth and fame -- likely why the internet has reacted so fiercely to the recreation.
Whether Love Story earns the fashion world's approval will be understood on February 12 when it premieres on FX and Hulu. Its trailer has been viewed over 29 million times.