More than 20 years have passed since onlookers were first taken aback by the image of Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) walking down a Manhattan street in a tutu. Since then,
Sex and the City has changed the way audiences interact with contemporary costume design. Viewers were just as drawn to Carrie’s closet as they were to brunch hangouts, Cosmos, and the on-again-off-again relationship with Big (Chris Noth). Even after two decades, it is impossible to think of Manolo Blahnik without conjuring an image of his biggest fan splurging her cash on a new pair of his heels. Now Carrie Bradshaw is back in the SATCreboot And Just Like That… and so is her ongoing romance with the shoe brand.
Oscar-nominated costume designer Patricia Field won an Emmy for her work on the original HBO series, and while she isn’t returning for AJLT, her successors are no strangers to Carrie’s world. Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago are both proteges of Field and worked alongside her on SATC. “She set the DNA for this show and she gave Danny and me the roadmap,” Rogers tells ELLE.com during the last few days of production (Santiago was on set). The AJLT designer met Field when she first moved to New York in the 1980s, and Field gave Rogers a job in her now legendary store. “I have been elbow to elbow with Pat in many trenches,” she says. “Hopefully, knowing her since 1984, I got something through osmosis. I don't think you cannot learn something in a Devil Wears Prada fitting room with Pat and Meryl Streep.”
Field has been incredibly supportive of her predecessors (“You're the only person for the job because you've been there since the beginning,” Rogers recalls her saying) and the only advice she gave was “to make sure you keep the whimsy in the costumes because that devil-may-care loose, free, vibrant touch to Carrie's clothes is important.” From the many photos taken by fans and paparazzi while AJLT was filming on location in New York City, it is clear Rogers and Santiago have enthusiastically embraced this sentiment.
Details on the plot are still tightly under wraps and seeing the costumes out of context has led to snap judgments and rampant theorizing. Rogers believes the anticipation and the years-long wait for a SATC reunion have led to a level of scrutiny unlike anything she experienced on the original TV series or two movies. “I like to compare it to a Roman Colosseum. The girls step out of their trailer and it's immediately, thumbs up you live, thumbs down you die.” And while Rogers couldn’t go into any specific spoilers, she did share fitting room secrets, callbacks to the original series, and why she has to fight for Carrie to wear hats.
The AJLT costume team sourced the pieces from an array of sellers, so for fashion-loving fans out there, we’ve rounded up ways to recreate standout looks from the show. While the real onscreen wardrobe relies heavily on vintage pieces, the options below include matches and dupes of Carrie’s one-of-a-kind style—plus some bonus Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) inspiration.
A New Outlook
Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda's lives have changed significantly since they last graced our screens, but one thing hasn’t: their sartorial essence. “Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte had these specific archetype looks; Charlotte being the Upper East Side preppy, Miranda being tailored and Carrie being whimsical,” Rogers says. The designer likens this to “Karl Lagerfeld in a way. It's like a uniform.”
But Rogers has given the girls an opportunity to expand their styles in the years since SATC aired, most noticeably in an expanded color palette. Bold and bright garments have been embraced in 2021 against a backdrop of continued uncertainty, and Rogers says that with the series, “I hope people can escape and enjoy themselves.”
In With the Old
Vintage is a signature characteristic of Carrie’s style, and in the years since the first season debuted, the world of consignment and thrifting online has exploded. In AJLT, we’ll see Ms. Bradshaw pair a Fendi Baguette in a nano version (a fun twist on an old favorite) with a pink rainbow pleated silk caftan from vintage co-op Arcade. “You cannot find something like that in a high street store,” Rogers says. “That has to come from somebody's attic. Those pieces are so special, and when you find them in the bottom of the box, it's exciting, and Sarah Jessica [Parker] gets excited.”
Rather than only relying on a team of shoppers, Rogers likes to leave the office and “find what I call a honey hole.” There’s one seller she refers to as “the witch” because “she has a roomful of things that feel like they have mysterious energy or something, and it's so fun to poke around.” (She clarifies this seller is not “witchy in any way,” of course.) Based in Miami before production began, Rogers and Santiago soon realized they’d amassed a wealth of one-of-a-kind treasures for AJLT to dip into. “I tore through Palm Beach County and I scored. SJ wore so much of it. It was great,” Rogers says. “Florida is where New Yorkers go to die, and they take their closet with them.”
From the Vault
Thrift finds aren’t the only vintage you’ll find in AJLT. In her recent Vogue profile, Parker revealed she kept all of Carrie’s things from the original series in storage, and Rogers had access to it all.
“When we were prepping, SJ said, ‘Okay, you need to look through my archive and borrow what you think is important that the fans will like,’” Rogers says of this mammoth collection. When she went through the inventory, she realized that, rather than painstakingly selecting pieces, she’d prefer to have the entire archive on hand. “We were still very careful with what we presented again and let it have its second life, but it was good to have it all there,” she says. Accessories like the famous “Roger” belt have already been spotted by eagle-eyed fans.
One unforgettable Carrie signature was impossible to leave out: “The Carrie necklace. It's sentimental for the viewers. I can't think of any other show that has this kind of long shelf life with inanimate objects.” Rogers is aware of the attachment to these pieces. “A belt will elicit a reaction across the Internet. People are happy to see the ‘Roger,’” she says. Reusing accessories is easier and comes with a sustainable bonus: “It's nice too, as far as ecology and recycling.”
Top It Off
“Sarah Jessica loves hats, and I think she looks good in them. She can put a turban on and then a hat on top of that, and she can handle it,” says Rogers about the array of AJLT headwear. But one department on set felt differently: “Hats are hated by the director of photography because they cannot light them.” The problem arises when a particularly large accessory means the DP loses sight of the star. “You'll see in one scene [this season] halfway through [Parker]'ll take it off because they're like, ‘We can't see your eyes,’ and it makes us cuckoo,” Rogers says.
Carrie has already been spotted wearing a fabulous straw boater, a fedora, a fascinator, and the Bavarian-adjacent feather number above, but Rogers did find a unique summer accessory in Florida that sadly didn’t get used. “There was one straw hat that had in the crown of it a little mirror so you would take your hat off and you could check your lipstick,” she says wistfully.
Mixing and Matching
The first official AJLT image HBO Max released of Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte saw the trio dressed in an array of patterns. Carrie’s vintage Victorian-inspired skirt is by Norma Kamali, Charlotte favors Caroline Herrera polka dots, and Miranda wears Altuzarra plaid. Rogers explains this playfulness and thematic intent came from her mentor: “You'll see this when you watch old episodes of the other show. Pat would love to play with colors when they were all in the coffee shop,” she says. “I love to do that: ‘You're the polka dot, you're the stripes, and you're the solid.’ That tells such a story. I think it’s strong; it’s fun.”
Part of this pattern mixing occurs in the fitting room, where the designers always refer back to what another character is wearing in each scene. “Let's say you've already fit Carrie, and you're in a fitting with Miranda. You always look to see what Carrie's wearing,” she says. “You just don’t put Miranda in something that you like. ‘Okay, Carrie’s wearing pink so you can have this, that, or that.’”
Return of the Tulle
Part of Carrie’s quintessential whimsy is exemplified by the original tutu, which gets its sequel in AJLT—but this successor almost never came to be. “There was a totally different outfit slotted for that scene, and when SJ came in for a refit on something, we changed it,” Rogers says cryptically. “It shocked me because we were all in love with the outfit we had already set, but in the end, it was so appropriate. It was the only place to do that. If we were gonna do it, it was [the] only chance.”
Carrie wears a pair of patent two-tone Chanel booties (previously worn in an episode of SATC) with the floor-length white tutu. A purple sequin Fendi Baguette bag is another tie to the past, but she also has a New York or Nowhere tote to hand. “I love that tote bag. New Yorkers believe that fiercely,” she says. “New Yorkers are very possessive of their city and protective—just like the fans are.”
