While filming Love Story, Sarah Pidgeon had unparalleled access to Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s very own wardrobe. Yet, one coveted piece remained just out of reach: the late publicist’s floral midi dress from Chanel’s spring/summer 1996 collection designed by Karl Lagerfeld.
“I begged them to put that in the show,” Pidgeon tells ELLE of the bias-cut design. “She’s got sling-backs on. Her hair is tossed to the side. She looks so summery, absolutely beautiful, and at ease.”
While the Lagerfeld-era Chanel reflected Bessette Kennedy’s effortless elegance, the watercolor motif represented a notable deviation from the understated minimalism that cemented her status as a style icon. Although that dream costume never materialized, Pidgeon channeled a more familiar Bessette Kennedy spirit at Chanel’s annual Tribeca Artists Dinner last night.
Pidgeon arrived at Tribeca Grill in a sleek leather minidress from Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel 2026 Métiers d’art collection, accented by interlocking Cs at the hips and paired with the brand’s now-signature square-toe pumps. The dress’s sleek simplicity nodded to Bessette Kennedy’s refined approach to dressing, while Pidgeon’s perfectly tousled hair—still in that unmistakable shade of CBK blond—served as a fitting cool-girl finishing touch.
“There are only so many more weeks that you can get away with wearing leather in New York,” Pidgeon says. To offset the toughness of the look, she layered several 18K white gold pieces from Chanel’s “Coco Crush” collection alongside the Première Galon timepiece in white gold and diamonds, accessories that “blend so seamlessly together,” she notes.
Joined by the likes of Ayo Edebiri, Sofia Coppola, Katie Holmes, Paloma Elsesser, Alex Consani, and Whoopi Goldberg, the evening spotlighted the 2026 Artist Awards Program—an initiative that invites esteemed artists to provide works for the festival winners. Curated by Zoe Lukov, this year’s lineup includes Bony Ramirez, Brendan Fernandes, Carrie Mae Weems, Hank Willis Thomas, Jason Bard Yarmosky, Joshua Woods, Kiki Smith, Soull and Dynasty Ogun, Tavares Strachan, and Tosh Basco.
Pidgeon had a few familiar faces on her radar at the event, including longtime friend Chase Sui Wonders and her Love Story co-star Grace Gummer, but was equally excited to mingle with the broader Chanel crowd. “I haven’t been able to shake Robert De Niro’s hand,” she says of the actor, who is a co-owner of Tribeca Grill and co-founder of the festival. “Maybe I can get that in tonight.”
This year marked the dinner’s 19th edition, coinciding with the Tribeca Festival’s 25th anniversary. It also fell on the same night as game 3 of the NBA Finals, with many guests like Teyana Taylor and Molly Gordon, who wore a retro-style Knicks jacket and jeans, supporting the hometown team.
Previously held at downtown institutions including The Odeon and Balthazar, the dinner returned Pidgeon to a neighborhood she had come to know well while filming Love Story.
Having spent months inhabiting Bessette Kennedy’s world in Tribeca, Pidgeon developed her own affection for the neighborhood and the era it came to define. Tribeca Grill, fittingly, is just blocks from the Kennedys’ former loft on North Moore Street.
“I was born in 1996, so I don’t really have a lived experience of [the ’90s], but there’s a longing for this time of anonymity and ‘you had to be there’ moments,” she explains. “Being able to tell this love story—which was also, in many ways, a love story to New York—and spend so much time in different parts of the city, especially Tribeca, was really special.”
Now, the neighborhood feels a little more familiar. “It is very comforting to be able to walk around and navigate Tribeca without looking at my Google Maps.”
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