Former Calvin Klein Staffers Dish on Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and the Company’s Strict ’90s Rules

Former Calvin Klein employees are speaking out about what life inside the fashion house was really like during the era when Carolyn Bessette Kennedy worked for the company.

In a TikTok posted Tuesday, February 17, former employee, Mary Beth Kelley, remembered working on the same floor as Bessette Kennedy, who began as a saleswoman before being promoted to the director of publiclty. “She was so nice, she was so down to earth,” Kelley shared. “She always looked incredible.”

Kara Mendelsohn — who joined Calvin Klein after Carolyn left — also took to TikTok to dish on the strict image rules of what employees “were and were not allowed to do,” recalling that nail polish was banned and makeup had to stay “extremely minimalist.”

“Everyone’s makeup looked like Carolyn’s,” she says. “We had very thin eyebrows … and people wore very, very minimal, minimal makeup. There was no bright eyeshadows, there was no bright lips, everything was super neutral, and typically your hair was pulled back in a ponytail.”

Jewelry had to be simple, and she added that workers “were not allowed to talk to” designer Calvin Klein directly.

Mendelsohn also pointed out that Love Story accurately showed the office rule against flowers that weren’t white. “You were not allowed to have flowers on your desk that are not white,” she said.

Kelley and Mendelsohn shared their accounts following the premiere of Ryan Murphy’s new series FX’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, which depicts Carolyn’s romance with John F. Kennedy Jr. before their tragic deaths.