If you're simultaneously obsessed with the latest micro-trends and too intimidated to test them out, you've come to the right place. This is Ways to Wear, a monthly series where editor Eliza Huber offers a dose of outfit inspiration focused on current trends that feel intriguing yet overwhelming at the same time. Consider it your guide to actually wearing the coolest items of the moment, no matter how puzzling they might appear at first.
In fashion, a few years never pass by without at least one person trying to make leopard print a thing again. The kitschy print will show up in a runway collection or outside of one of L.A.'s many celebrity hot spots (yes, I'm looking at you, Sushi Park and Giorgio Baldi) in the form of a velvet coat or pair of loafers, leading to a bevy of content surrounding its return to fashion's good graces. It rarely sticks, though, and I think I know why.
Whenever leopard print has become a "trend," it's always done so in a way that feels excessive or over-the-top, but the times when it's felt the most covetable are when it's worn in a casual, laissez-faire manner that allows whatever item it's printed on to become a timeless staple. There's a reason why my leopard-print mood board doesn't include very many images from the handful of times that leopard print has made waves in the last two decades. Instead, it mostly consists of photos from the '80s and '90s, where it's donned by off-duty models and New York City muses completely nonchalantly—with jeans and a tee or a black turtleneck and matching pencil skirt. To make leopard print work, it has to appear effortless. No one managed to do just that better than Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.
Known for her innate ability to look elegant no matter what she was wearing—be it dark jeans and flip-flops for a dog walk around Tribeca or a gown for one of the many black-tie galas she attended alongside her husband John F. Kennedy Jr.—the late publicist and socialite is the perfect muse for anyone trying to work leopard print into their wardrobe without doing too much.
Her wardrobe only included a few leopard-print pieces (a knee-length, collared coat discovered at a flea market, according to British Vogue, and a pair of heeled loafers), but Bessette-Kennedy wore them frequently enough for the print to become synonymous with her iconic minimalist wardrobe, which heavily featured Prada and Calvin Klein, where she worked in PR. Typically, their appearances were accompanied by lots of black. Think turtlenecks, T-shirts, coats, and sweaters paired with just-flared-enough dark-wash denim. She never wore two leopard-print pieces together in one outfit and always kept the accompanying colors simple and classic.
When I decided to try my hand at incorporating the print into my own wardrobe, I likewise kept each look to just one printed piece and stuck to mostly black accent items. Keep scrolling to check out the four ways I ended up styling leopard print with Bessette-Kennedy at the forefront of my mind.