Carrie Bradshaw dressed for herself, not men, and gave us licence to follow suit

Yahoo

2 hours ago

Overdocumented as they might be now, the Nineties were a strange and lonely decade to be a fashion-lover. Fashion was a niche interest, like bone or stamp collecting. All information was strictly channelled through the pages of monthly magazines such as Vogue, Elle, The Face or i-D, bar the occasional style page in a newspaper. Interviewed for my first job as fashion editor of a national broadsheet, the editor asked, 'So, do you like clothes?' One wonders whether he asked the sport editor whether he liked football.
It's hard to remember a time when people didn't post videos of their weird shoes, designer hauls, salacious handbag unboxings, bargain charity shop finds and #OOTDs on social media. In 2025, having a unique sense of style can make you rich and famous. In 1995, it was more likely to have you bullied or ostracised.
Into this barren wasteland in 1998 tripped Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha and Miranda, four New York women who loved sex, shopping, cocktails and men, though never as much as they loved each other. Based on a newspaper column of the same name by Candace Bushnell (published in the New York Observer between 1994 and 1996), Sex and the City (SATC) revolutionised fashion: how it was perceived, how it was documented and how it was consumed. It legitimised fashion – not because naysayers suddenly realised the allure of a Fendi Baguette bag, but because the show's popularity proved that clothes, shoes and accessories had mainstream appeal, and deserved to be given space beyond the pages of a glossy magazine.
You might think that the vast exposure inherent to being featured on a TV show would be catnip to fashion designers, whose only recourse to publicity was via print and billboard advertising, magazine editorial or catwalk shows. Not so. Rather than seeing it as an opportunity, many designers were reluctant to place their brand in an environment where they would be unable to control the narrative.
'It was difficult to borrow clothes, as everyone heard the name 'Sex And The City' and thought 'what is this?'' remembers costume designer Molly Rogers. 'I guess it sounded pretty racy. No one loaned to TV shows then, as I remember – that world was strictly for editorial.' She cites Chanel, Dior and Christian Lacroix as early supporters of the show.
Rogers worked on SATC from 1998 to 2002, and served as costume designer on the 2008 and 2010 films, as well as all three seasons of And Just Like That, the divisive sequel. She witnessed first hand the genius of Patricia Field, the show's formidable New York stylist and costume designer whose eclectic, exuberant tastes ensured that Carrie would never fall into the dreary trap of wearing 'quiet luxury'. Without Field, there would be no oversized floral corsages, diamanté skull caps or ballgowns as daywear. Nor would there be what many consider to be Carrie's most iconic look, a tiered white tutu teamed with a pale pink vest top and strappy sandals, as immortalised in the show's opening sequence.
Field later revealed that she'd sourced the tutu from a thrift store bargain bin and bought it for $5 – a common practice for stylists and costume designers today, but an unusual one in 1998, an era when luxury brands would pull their advertising if a glossy magazine had the temerity to feature their expensive wares next to items that might threaten to devalue them. Field's 'high-low' approach of mixing designer and vintage together was hugely influential, although it wasn't until the beginning of season three that designers wanted in on the action. 'The show exploded then,' Field said in an interview, adding that costume design 'isn't about selling clothes, it's about telling a story. That's something I learned along the way.' Now 84, Field is still telling stories through clothes, most recently as the costume designer for Emily in Paris (Netflix), the fifth season of which is due to air later this year.
Before Sex and the City, the idea of 'fashion' as a main character in any TV show was virtually unheard of. While clothes had an important role in shows such as Dynasty, Friends or Beverly Hills 90210, they existed as costume, and were rarely, if ever, discussed by the characters themselves. They certainly weren't an integral part of the plot: characters didn't utter pithy lines like 'I like my money right where I can see it – hanging in my closet.' SATC made fashion a fundamental part of each character's identity – literally, in the case of Sarah Jessica Parker's 'Carrie' necklace. Here were four women with very different aspirations: Carrie a hopeless romantic, Miranda a driven career woman, Charlotte keen to settle down and Samantha happy to play the field. Their wardrobes were a visual shorthand for their aspirations.
From the beginning, the clothes were given as much consideration as the acting and the script. 'At the very start [of filming], Pat [Field] had an extensive conversation with [producer and writer] Darren Starr, where he gave her so much background information on each of the actresses that it really aided in building their costume DNA,' remembers Rogers. 'Charlotte was 'Upper East Side', Miranda was 'corporate', Carrie was 'eclectic and downtown' and Samantha spoke for gay men. Pat always said three things: that SATC was a moving fashion magazine, that we aren't making a documentary therefore I don't care where she gets these clothes, and finally, that we should never repeat an outfit – they don't repeat scripts.'
This idea of SATC as 'a moving fashion magazine' is spot-on. Like many viewers, I might not always have loved the wilder reaches of Carrie's style, but I loved what she stood for. Thanks to a writing and production team powered largely by women and gay men – co-creator and writer Michael Patrick King, producer and writer Darren Star, with Parker co-producing from 1999 onwards – viewers were served a heroine who wasn't traditionally beautiful (straight men almost universally seem to think SJP is unattractive, and probably wouldn't have cast her in a lead role), who unabashedly loved clothes, smoked cigarettes, enjoyed sex and had an enviable career as a writer. Who said women couldn't have it all?
Well, heterosexual men, for a start. 'I despised Candace Bushnell's vile cultural monster as a book and as a TV series,' one male critic opined in 2008. 'They represented a vacuous, trivialising, anti-feminist act of self-sabotage on the part of women. What amazed me was that women, even quite smart women, seized on this frivolous, vain confection as an emblem of sisterhood and empowerment.'
It shouldn't need saying that women can be clever and stylish, or debate geopolitics with the same expertise that they discuss Phoebe Philo's latest drop. Yet there still exist people who seek to diminish anyone whose interests they deem less serious or worthy than their own. Rather than being a 'vain confection', it was a joy to see Carrie – and in a different way, Samantha – dress for themselves, seemingly unconcerned with any other gaze than the one that greeted them in the mirror. 'Carrie made me bolder,' says Alison Cragg, a 50-something fan who works in HR. 'I remember having a boyfriend in the early 2000s who had a habit of laughing at some of the wilder clothes I wore. I've still got most of the clothes, but I don't have the boyfriend.' In the absence of a fulfilling relationship, a good pair of shoes is a decent consolation prize.
Most fans would agree that friendship, not fashion, was the beating heart of SATC. Flawed as the sequel was, when Michael Patrick King announced earlier this month that its third and current season would be its last (the final episode airs on Aug 14), longstanding fans of Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha took to social media to share their sadness. 'Carrie Bradshaw is the most important character that has ever graced television, and arguably, she is up there with the likes of Odysseus, Hamlet and even Jesus,' said one user, perhaps only half-joking. While their fashion prowess will live on through re-runs and Instagram fan accounts such as @everyoutfitonsexandthecity, their honest representation of female friendship will die with them. I'll miss their finery, but more than that, I'll miss their flaws.
As someone who grew up with them, I'd have happily watched these women navigate life, love and Loewe into old age. 'I'd have loved the actresses to make it to 'Golden Girl' status and create their own commune,' Rogers admits. 'But I always thought Carrie should have a certain ending, and when I read the last script of season three, I knew the final cosmopolitan had been drunk. I have not processed what it means – though superficially, it means no more stoops, no more closet scenes and no more shoe shots. It was the most incredible experience of my life.
'I saw the world and learnt from Pat and Sarah Jessica how to achieve visual success. The key to that is to be detail-oriented to a fault, make everyone around you nuts because you demand perfection – and never, ever, settle or compromise on an outfit.' Carrie couldn't have said it better.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Solve the daily Crossword