Very frequently, I have to wonder: is that so fashion-forward it’s ahead of its time, or is that just butt-ugly?
The Denver Post yesterday featured an article about the fashion in Sex and the City: the Movie. I have to say, based on the hints in this article, I am not impressed. For example: the outfits on the right. (Click on the article above, and then click on the photo there for a larger image.) Charlotte’s dress in wearable, but bland (although at least appropriate to the character.) Miranda’s metallic dress (for daywear?) washes her out and makes her look like a Sci-Fi glamazon, and Samantha’s red suit (with the peplum jacket). . .do not want. It’s aging and unflattering, and not even Samantha’s outsized personality can pull it off. Finally, Annie Hall Carrie: every five or six years, the fashion gods announce that the menswear look is back. And it’s always a bad idea, every time. (Isn’t Carrie old enough to have figured that out by now?)
I would rather wear Carrie’s famous “naked dress” every day for a month than wear that white menswear getup. (Are those pleated pants, which are even unflattering on Size 0 SJP??? Lady, please.)
(Sorry for the two posts in a row on fashion–please continue the discussion about partner/spousal hires below…)
Historiann 
I actually appreciated SJP’s clothes (as Carrie) much more before she became a “fashion icon”. I realize that part of real couture is that its really a bit much for the average gal, but some of the things she put on her head were too much for anyone…Not that it makes me love her any less.
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But but but…pleated pants, which look simultaneously too tight and balloon out in the middle?
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While not the fashion choice I would have made, I do think they’re at least more age-appropriate than the clothes she wore in season 4, which never seemed to extend below the very tippy top of her stomach…
And have you seen any photos of her wedding dress? Also not a fashion choice I would have made…
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The horror, the horror…
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At least I know which one is Carrie now, (I think). When you own “a” TV in several places, but are too cheap to actually “have TV” in any of them (cable, anyway), you’re basically helpless. Not knowing what peplum is, by contrast, is a fairly remediable deficit in this age of wiki. I guess seeing the film would make more sense, cost-wise, than calling the guys from Comcast in, or rushing out to buy the back-seasons on a DVD boxset?
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Indyanna–you can rent the DVDs at your own pace, which is much cheaper than Comcast or buying your own. (Who knows? You might try to local public library!)
I’ve never had cable in my adult life, so I only watched the show in full-season rental gorgefests. It was great, since the season’s videos or DVDs would be released in early May, right at the end of my academic year, so I’d start the summer off by watching the whole season in 3-4 nights straight. Good times!
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At least I got the “peplum” part for free–although Wiki got me lost in a bunch of weird reviews of Ben Hur movies.
So I bounced over to Wisegeek.com and quickly got remediated on the material part of the material culture meaning. And I thought it was some kind of fabric, not a treatment of fabric!
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“Isn’t Carrie old enough to have figured that out by now?”: Carrie is old enough to have figured out a lot of things by now, but her character de-matured as the series progressed (watch the reruns – ack!). As costumes, however, the butt-ugly clothes worked for her. Victim of juvenile notions of romance, victim of fashion: Carrie became a hot mess all around.
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Wow, Clio B.–your analysis is scathing, yet oddly compelling…I think that you’re right that the kooky clothes were a symbol of Carrie’s confusion and (perhaps) immaturity. The other three characters had looks that matched their personalities, and they never wore stuff that didn’t make sense for them.
I really, really disliked the cheating-on-Aidan-with-Big plot, and have to admit that I lost my crush on Chris Noth through all of that stuff. Coincidentally, I used to have a crush on John Corbett (the actor who played Aidan), back when he played “Chris in the Morning” on Northern Exposure. So, oddly, the only taste of Carrie’s that I appreciated was her taste in men!
But, admit it: you’re going to see the movie this weekend, too!
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I was also a big fan of Aidan, and am still mad at Carrie for treating him so horribly. I have to say though, her taste in men declined along with her fashion sense-Alexander Petrovsky was just icky, and not even close to her type. Since when do women gravitate more towards controlling men as they age? I thought that’s what we did in our 20s, before we figured it all out…
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ej, precisely what I mean by de-matured! Then she had to be rescued — rescued! — from the clearly abusive Petrovsky by the equally toxic Big, all while dressed in frilly pink.
Historiann, I lurved Chris in the Morning! The whole affair story line was about the time that Sex and the City jumped the shark for me. I probably won’t go see it this weekend — I haven’t seen a movie in the theater in years — but will absolutely read every single review, and it will be in my Netflix queue the second it appears on DVD! I have this compulsive need to know how the story ends.
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ej–great point about Petrovsky. I erased him from her sexual history, because he was such a loser and so inappropriate…
Clio B.–stay tuned for my review here at Historiann.com, sometime next week! (I won’t spoil it for those who want to see it on their own.)
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