And Just Like That, our prayers have been answered. Almost twenty years have passed since we said goodbye to the girls in season 6. Since then, there have been two feature-length films and a canceled prequel titled The Carrie Diaries on The CW, both of which failed to meet the fashion mark left behind by Sex and The City. This sequel series could be what fans have needed, the Miranda to their Carrie, the Charlotte to their Samantha. And Despite Kim Cattrall not taking part in the new series, the anticipation to see the SATC crew on screens again is clear to see.
The time has come to hit the cultural reset button and be transported back to the early 2000s, where flower corsages and oversized children’s clothes reigned supreme. The show originally ran from 1998 to 2002, with the show’s dramatic finale leaving us with the iconic Carrie voiceover “The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself.” The show hit on subjects that almost every young adult faces in their daily lives, from the logistics of casual sex and one-night stands to dealing with relationship issues and professional career problems, the show brought a new lighthearted aesthetic to city life while still tackling subjects from a different perspective.
Throughout the series and the subsequent films, there have been an array of groundbreaking fashion looks, from the idolized purple Fendi “baguette” handbag to block colour tailored suits. It all came down to the vision Costume designer Patricia Field had for the cast of SACT, wanting to mix and play with luxury vs. fast fashion, Patricia wanted to reflect the varied array of fashions and styles that walk down the streets of New York every day. As Field describes the impact Sex and The City had on street fashion, “like sitting at the bottom of an atom bomb.” Sex And The City’s large cult-like following and huge cultural impact on consumerism and the fashion industry as a whole, looks are still immortalized with Instagrams such as Carrie Dragshaw (created by brand and innovation consultant Dan Clay) celebrate and appreciate the ridiculousness of 2000s fashion.
And while some of Carrie’s less than appealing attempts at fashion are still burnt into our brains like some infamous y2k fashion draught, we still have And Just Like That’s costumer designers Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago stepping in to not only appreciate the looks that made the show iconic in the first place, but to also bring new life and modernize the series. “But who needs a Sex and The City reboot?” You may be asking yourself. Well, given the buzz and hype around the cast and crew being spotted around New York filming, it seems that not only does the New York fashion scene need a revival, but the fashion world also needs another cultural reset. Will this be another fashion atom bomb in the making or will we see more of the same?
Words By Rebecca Chapman
