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Opinion | Has And Just Like That gone too far with the designer labels? Sex and the City offered major fashion inspiration in the 90s and noughties, but its films and spin-off are bloated with brands

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Opinion | Has And Just Like That gone too far with the designer labels? Sex and the City offered major fashion inspiration in the 90s and noughties, but its films and spin-off are bloated with brands

Sex and the City turned 25 this month! But unlike most of us – who likely grimace at the clothes we wore a quarter of a century ago – the show felt infinitely more stylish in its infancy than it does now.

Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw (left) and Kim Cattrall as Samantha Jones, with Cosmopolitans, in Sex in the City. Photo: HBO

I’ve been rewatching it, and I’m reminded all over again why it became a de facto spiritual guru for multiple generations of women. Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha and Miranda, for their flaws, showed us a new mode of living – one where baby showers and weddings were anything but aspirational, and where all you really needed to be happy was your friends.

The Carrie Dress, made iconic by Sarah Jessica Parker. Photo: She Goes Wear

Who could forget some of Carrie’s iconic outfits? I’ve always loved the traffic-stopping LBD (OK technically, it’s dark grey) she wore in season two, episode 15, for an ill-fated date with writer Vaughn Wysel – and then for a far more successful post-break-up lunch with Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha – paired with gold aviators.

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Sarah Jessica Parker playing Carrie Bradshaw, wearing a white dress in New York. Photo: @everyoutfitonsatc/Instagram

Even more turbulent in terms of her love life (but thankfully not her clothes) was the white, bias-cut slip she wears when she sees Big leaving his engagement party with a pair of simple heels.

Carrie Bradshaw, aka SJP, wearing a strappy floral dress. Photo: Getty Images

Then there was the strappy floral midi – from Richard Tyler’s Resort 2001 collection – that Carrie wears when she takes a surprise dip in Central Park’s boating pond with Big. Another one of my favourite outfits follows on from that impromptu swim when she buttons up an oversized white shirt of Big’s with heels and an Hermès belt.

Carrie Bradshaw’s iconic white-shirt-and-belt combo with heels. Photo: @everyoutfitonsatc/Instagram
The thread that connects all these looks is that – for all their stylishness – there is a simplicity to them. The rest of us, with a bit of time and effort (some of it probably spent in the gym) could source something similar. This made Carrie feel like what she was – a cleverly dressed, head-turning woman living in a big city – rather than what she became … which was closer to a fashion cartoon.

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In many ways, Sex and the City became a victim of its own success, and this is as true in the fashion department as it was in the storylines. Whereas the first four (and arguably all six) series of the TV show were smart, snappy and very funny, while also saying something true about the reality of being female while ageing in a world that has set ideas about both, the films lost all of this freshness.

Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw wearing a more overstated look. Photo: Getty Images
Instead, they turned what was a savvy TV show into a designer-clothes saturated love-in, and the label obsession of the characters felt off-putting rather than aspirational. The new series, And Just Like That, moved back towards a slightly more thoughtful aesthetic, with many outfits comprised of a mix of designer brands and vintage finds from Miami Beach, where one of the costume designers lives. But at times it still felt overly styled and lacking in the originality that made us fall in love with the fashion 25 years ago.
Carrie Bradshaw is the face of Sex and the City. Photo: Getty Images
In the trailer for the second instalment of AJLT – which is released later this month – the slightly messier but still highly aspirational fashion we saw in the original show was lacking. Yes, there was plenty of Dries Van Noten, Balenciaga and Chanel, but Carrie’s clothes still bear no reality to how people in New York today actually dress. This is unlike the original series – and unusual, because people are supposed to be more at ease with what they wear as they age, rather than less.
Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kristin Davis playing their characters on And Just Like That. Photo: Getty Images

As for the other characters, I was relieved that in the first series of AJLT, Miranda (played by Cynthia Nixon) looks like herself, with her grey hair and simple dresses and trousers. It was a welcome departure from the films, where at times she was swamped by puffy sleeves and oversized collars that didn’t fit with her character.

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Charlotte (played by Kristin Davis) is dressed much as she has always been, just more expensively – and as for Kim Cattrall’s Samantha, when news was released last week that she would be making a cameo, big accessories designers everywhere must have been delighted.
Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon on the set of And Just Like That. Photo: Getty Images
Ultimately, it’s difficult to garner too much from a trailer, but I hope that the second season of AJLT remembers what a sartorial touchstone Sex and the City was throughout the 90s and noughties – and that it plays to this strength, rather than trying to stuff as many designer labels as possible into each 40-minute episode.

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