Hailey Bieber has stepped out in a piece of fashion history, wearing the same Narciso Rodriguez dress that Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy wore to her wedding rehearsal dinner in 1996.
Bieber wore the champagne-colored, bias-cut slip to a party at the private Harry's Bar in London's Mayfair celebrating the arrival of Michael Ratner's entertainment company, OBB, in the city. According to Vogue, the dress is a Cerruti by Narciso Rodriguez Spring 1997 design sourced from vintage archive specialist My Runway Archive. Most notably, it was confirmed to be "one and the same" dress worn by Bessette-Kennedy more than three decades ago.
The dress features the streamlined silhouette associated with Rodriguez's 1990s work, with a champagne-colored finish, bias cut and crystal embellishment. Bessette-Kennedy wore the piece for the rehearsal dinner ahead of her September 1996 wedding to John F. Kennedy Jr. on Georgia's Cumberland Island.
The Narciso Rodriguez Dress Has a Personal History
The connection between Bessette-Kennedy and Rodriguez goes back to their time at Calvin Klein. According to Vogue, the two met in 1990 while working at the fashion house, where Bessette-Kennedy was a publicist and Rodriguez was a designer. Their friendship eventually led Bessette-Kennedy to ask Rodriguez to design her wedding dress.
Rodriguez created the ivory slip dress Bessette-Kennedy wore for her wedding, as well as the separate dress she wore for the rehearsal dinner. British Vogue describes the latter as a nude-colored, bias-cut slip with a tank-style neckline and crystal embellishment.
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The wedding dress itself became an important part of Rodriguez's career. Vogue has reported that Bessette-Kennedy's decision to work with the then relatively unknown designer helped put him on the map, while Rodriguez later established his own label in 1997.
The rehearsal dinner dress has also received renewed attention in 2026 through Ryan Murphy's Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette. For the series, costume designer Rudy Mance and his team studied archival references to recreate Bessette-Kennedy's wedding wardrobe, including the rehearsal dinner dress.
Hailey Bieber's 1990s Fashion Reference
Bieber's choice of the archival Rodriguez dress also fits with her documented interest in 1990s fashion. Vogue notes that she has previously incorporated elements associated with Bessette-Kennedy's minimalist wardrobe, including straight-leg cigarette jeans and little black dresses.
That makes the London appearance particularly notable. Rather than simply choosing a modern design inspired by Bessette-Kennedy's wardrobe, Bieber wore the actual Rodriguez dress that Bessette-Kennedy selected for an important part of her 1996 wedding celebrations.
The connection is especially fitting given the dress's history. Rodriguez was responsible for two of the most closely associated looks from Bessette-Kennedy's wedding weekend, and the rehearsal dinner dress has now resurfaced on Bieber more than 30 years after its original appearance.
For vintage-fashion fans, the significance is in the provenance as much as the silhouette. The dress is not merely a contemporary recreation of a 1990s look: according to Vogue, it is the same archival piece Bessette-Kennedy wore in 1996, giving Bieber's London appearance a direct connection to one of the era's most closely documented fashion legacies.
