LOVE STORY: JOHN F. KENNEDY JR. & CAROLYN BESSETTE Official Podcast Episode 4: Rudy Mance

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Welcome back to the Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette: Official Podcast. I'm Evan Ross Katz, podcaster and pop culture provocateur, and thanks to Love Story, self-appointed nineties fashion connoisseur. Here to talk all about our favorite looks is Emmy nominated costume designer Rudy Mance.

Rudy, thank you. So much for being here. This is not your first Ryan Murphy project far from it. Um, how did this project differ from the ones that you've done in the past?

RUDY MANCE: I had started, uh, my career at Conde Nast as a, as a fashion editor, Carolyn and JFK, they were always on the mood boards. They sort of, you know, never left that sort of nineties minimalist aesthetic.

So, so that I sort of had, you know, ingrained since I was a kid. But yeah, it, uh, it was challenging in, in the beginning.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: You have your background with Conde. Obviously your interest in fashion and the fact that these characters that you are now going to be dressing have been on your mood board for I imagine decades.

So I imagine like the entry point to this show is particularly unique for you.

RUDY MANCE: Yeah, yeah. The most challenging thing I would say was, you know, how everybody knew what she wore from 1996 when they met. Until, you know, her death in ‘99. But before that, and that's, you know, we were telling the story of how they met.

So anything pre 1996 and we started like around 92, 93, 94. There were very, very, very few photos of her at the time. He was easier because, you know, he's spent photographed his entire life. But I'd say that was the most challenging part. Who she was before she sort of, you know, became this, you know, Yohji Yamamoto and Prada clad like, you know, bombshell.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: And I imagine she had to be a little bit more thrifty at that time before she had the access that is afforded to the rich and famous. Right. Is that true?

RUDY MANCE: We talked to a lot of people that that knew her and, you know, were friends with her and she really did live like a messy girl and like down in the village.

And so it was, she sort of, you know, went from that to living in his, you know, pristine Tribeca loft. When he met her, she wasn't wearing head to toe yogi like that all came later.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: What happens during that research process? You know, um, obviously I imagine the internet can be quite helpful. Mm-hmm. But you've been doing this for a while and you've been doing it from before the internet, so I'd love to learn how the research process used to exist and how it's changed today, and then what it consisted of for this particular project.

RUDY MANCE: Well, I remember even before I, I started doing film and TV when I was, uh, an assistant, uh, you know. Like, we would go to the Conde Nast Library when it was still at Times Square, 4 Times Square before they moved downtown to the World Trade Center. And so I, I remember in, in my early days when I first started as an assistant, I, you know, you would go through like the old back issues and you would literally do photocopies of, you know, now everything's digital.

You can, you know, find anything online. There were a handful of, uh, of Instagram accounts that, um, that publish every photo that was ever done of her. The fitting room was just like papered it, like we looked like, you know, serial killers, uh, uh, like just obsessed because it was literally every single photo we could find Of the two of them, it was about like two or three weeks before we had to do the, the wedding episode.

Um, and so the wedding dress, obviously, like, you know, we. If we knew what that looked like. But there were very few photos of the, uh, the rehearsal dress. I had a lot of really incredible design assistants and one of them like threw some backdoor rabbit hole. Through the internet, like found like a sketch that Narciso had done of her dress.

And then another, another assistant found like a shot of a model wearing it from the back. And so we sort of pieced it together, um, and, and then came up with, came up with the designs.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: So you might've just answered my next question 'cause I was going to ask if there was any particular look that you felt more pressure to nail.

So let me say, if not, the wedding dress and the rehearsal dinner dress. Was there another look that you felt a particular pressure to make sure that you got right?

RUDY MANCE: Ryan wanted to match as exact as possible, and anytime that there was, there was a look or a moment that we had, you know, that was so well documented that was big pressure to nail it.

There's the scene when they, they first, uh, come back from their honeymoon. They've just been married and it, it's a very famous point in history when they come back like the paparazzi or, or. You know, stalked outside. And so they go inside, he puts on Navy blue suit and comes out. And then it's when she comes out and he sort of says like, guys, like she's new to this.

Like, give her time. And she's wearing head to toe Prada. At that time, I think it was a men's black V-neck sweater and that camel, uh, pencil skirt with the brown Prada boots and the black Prada patent bag. And so like that was a. That was an important, important one to, uh, to nail. It took a long time and we really like, you know, like we got, we got.

Things from, you know, eBay and Japan and from like, you know, Etsy and the Ukraine.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: That makes me think about just sourcing in general. Is there sort of a one size fits all, or I imagine maybe each different brand or archivist has their own sort of process?

RUDY MANCE: So for the tan Prada coat, for example, the coat fit her perfectly, but the sleeves, you know, Sarah's arms were, were longer than the, uh, than the coat.

And so, you know, we, we talked to the, uh, to the collector and, and said, you know, is it okay if we, you know, tweak it and then restore it? And, you know, they were very cool and said yes. And so if, if, if the actual coat that you see here wearing is the, the tan Prada coat, but we had to, um, extend the cuff.

About like, I'd say like four inches. And so that meant like, you know, basically performing surgery on this beautiful, you know, piece of history. That's the Prada coat. And so we had to take off very meticulously, take off the cuff. Of course, it's been, you know, dry cleaned a hundred times at that point.

So then we found fabric that. Looked kind of similar. And then, uh, we sent it to the dry cleaner like four or five times to get the same like gnat on it. And then we went in and airbrushed it so it would match exactly. And so it's sort of like a process like that. Like the same goes, she wore that with like this beautiful Ann Demeulemeester black leather skirt. And so we found the original black leather skirt from Ann D, but uh, it was too short. So then, you know, we sort of used that and copied it, and then you'd just used the belt. So it was sort of like, you know, things like that. Like we could, we would use as much as we could. And then, you know, like there was one Yohji, uh, Yohji Yamamoto. A two piece suit, you know, like if we could find it, great. If we couldn't, we just made it.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: I mean, I love the level of detail you're talking about with, you know, having this, the product coat dry cleaned four times to make sure that the additional fabric that you're adding on matches. Is that level of detail.

Is that just how you operate and is it, that just to me, is so astounding to be thinking not only, okay, we need to do this, but we need to take it the extra mile and make sure it's literally. Matching. Exactly.

RUDY MANCE: It's a bit of a perfectionist, uh, you know, streak for better or worse. But yeah, it's like, I, I like, why do it if you're not gonna do it as, you know, as precise as possible.

And especially for something like this, if you're coming this far to get the actual coat, it's like you can't like, you know, at the last minute, like, eh, this sleeve's good enough.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: So I wanna touch on historical accuracy versus interpretation. You know, we talked about the fact that even, uh, in the character of Carolyn, her younger life, you know, we get to examine that in this show, and it's something that there's not as much, you know, uh, there's not as many photos out there of what she looked like at that point and how she dressed.

So I imagine that's an instance in which interpretation really came into play. How did you find that balance between interpreting versus this idea of wanting certain looks to be replications?

RUDY MANCE: Well, we had a bit of an easy time, like when it was, um, when it was her, like, you know, for all of the scenes when she was working at the Calvin Klein offices because then, you know, we could just use old Calvin.

'cause it was, you know, that was a bit safer as an idea like. It was just known like everybody at Calvin Klein at that time either wore like head to toe Calvin or head to toe Prada and it was like, that's all you wore. 'cause it was like, they're really the ones that sort of ushered in that like very minimalist, uh, you know, nineties look.

And I think that's why it's like, it's so timeless. Like, 'cause it's so. But it's also so simple. It got trickier, you know, like, like what did she wear at home when she's talking on the phone at 3:00 AM or like, you know, when she has a day off and she's just bumming around the East Village. We sort of took, took a few liberties, like, you know, we found this incredible like plunging, uh, Prada dress, uh, with a coat that like she had worn to like a dinner much later, but it was like, well.

We have the piece, we're either going to never use it or we're gonna choose to use it like, you know, at a different, at a different time. So, so I think for that particular one, it was when her character and, uh, JFK go to, uh, Caroline and Ed's house for dinner. And I was like, you know, we might get killed for this, but also, like, you know, who's to say she didn't wear her dress three times?

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Talk to me about dressing the background actors in a project like this, because obviously we're focusing on the characters of Carolyn and John who have a, a known as, aesthetic, but you're having to dress more than just the central characters.

RUDY MANCE: You know, kudos to my team. Uh, I had an incredible, uh, background team, uh, led by Maria Clinton.

And, um, we pre fit, uh, every single background character that you saw. The East Village has its own look compared to Tribeca, compared to, you know. The Upper East Side, when we were at Calvin, we had a very controlled color palette of, you know, that sort of minimalist, like slate gray and camel in black and white.

Um, and then, you know, like I said, when we, when we went to the East Village, or even when we go to the Roxy, like street looking punks, I would say, you know, um, and. Obviously when we went to George Magazine, that was much more sort of stayed and reserved businessman attire like Wall Street. And so it's, um, yeah, I, I had a, a, a great team and they, they worked incredibly, incredibly hard to sort of give each scene and each location it, its own, its own aesthetic.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Can you describe your process working with Sunita? Who wrote the CBK, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, a life and fashion. Did she come visit you on set and see the original collector items you discovered? Did she connect you to other designers you didn't have access to before?

RUDY MANCE: Yeah, all of the above. She was, uh, she did come to set, uh, she did look at all of the pieces.

Um, she, she was actually the one to connect us with, uh, with Yohji Yamamoto, um, in Paris. Um, and yet she was incredible. She obviously, you know, knew a lot, uh, and had a wealth of information because she wrote the book, but she even knew more than that, that wasn't included in the book. So, you know, like there was one, there was one, uh, scene where, you know, she, it, it was her, her with, uh, JFK, and I think they were at Hyannis Port.

They had scripted that, you know, she was wearing a, a beautiful silk nightgown with a matching robe. And I was like, this doesn't feel like real or authentic to her. And so, you know, I, she was incredible. I, you know, she was in London, but I would text her like, you know, we were on WhatsApp and, and she said like, no, like her, her friend said she used to wear like this cotton, very basic, almost grandma looking like nightgown.

And so that's what we wound up doing. So she was really, really, uh. Instrumental and, you know, just like those subtle, those subtle things that, you know, like obviously there weren't paparazzi shots of what she wore when she was just hanging out at her house. She wore his clothes a lot of times. So like, there's a, there's a couple of little Easter eggs that I put in where, you know, like he'd, he'd be in one episode wearing, you know, plaid boxers and then like an episode or two later, like, I would use those same plaid boxers, but she would wear them.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Now, how collaborative was this process in terms of working with the actors?

RUDY MANCE: Oh very. I mean, God bless them, and both Sarah and Paul, and honestly, the, the entire cast, like Grace, uh, Constance, everyone, like, we had so many fittings and like, especially for, for Paul and for Sarah, it was like they were in.

Every scene, every day. So we would literally, like if I got them for, you know, 15 minutes during their lunch break, they would do a fitting or if like we had to do it at 5:00 AM 'cause it worked like third scene up, they would do it. It's like they never said no and it was as important for them, for it to to be right.

As much as it was for me. So it really was a, a, a major collaboration.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Mm. To wrap things up, I get the sense that you worked very, very hard on this show, and so I'm wondering what are you most proud of when you look at this experience and zoom out. On the whole,

RUDY MANCE: uh, I guess just that we, you know, we pulled it off and I just, I hope that we did them justice and it's, you know, it's a tricky one to, to tell and I just, I, uh, I hope it was a great collaboration and I hope that.

Our respect for them comes, comes through in the end product.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: I think it's fair to say that you more than pulled it off, if I may.

RUDY MANCE: Thank you.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Yeah.

RUDY MANCE: Let's hope.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Rudy, thank you so much.

RUDY MANCE: Thank you.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: That's all for this time. On the next podcast, we're joined by Grace Gummer who plays the character of Caroline Kennedy.

And trust me, you're not going to wanna miss that conversation. You can check it out on Hulu. Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers or wherever you get your podcasts. Terms apply and watch new episodes of Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. And Carolyn Bessette on FX. Hulu. And if you're a bundle subscriber, Hulu on Disney Plus.

Terms apply so many places to fall in love with this new show. Be sure to rate, review and follow the Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. And Carolyn Bessette Official Podcast. Wherever you watch or listen. I'm Evan Ross Katz and I'll see you next time.