While the other characters stayed within well-defined looks (sexy, preppy, and professional), Carrie’s style was eclectic and individual; her closet a mix of high and low, old and new, emerging labels and established houses. In showing viewers that “you could wear a Dior dress, but you can pair it with a vintage shoe and a cardigan from the Gap and it all works… she sort of empowered this new way of dressing, which was pretty fabulous,” notes Vogue editor Virginia Smith. “Typically when you saw characters on a television show, as a fashion person, you were like, ‘Oh, they really got that wrong.’ But not with Sex and the City. It was so influential on the fashion industry, actually, for many, many years. It was remarkable.”
The characters’ expressive fashion was symbolic of their overall empowerment as single, working women and demonstrated that feminism needn’t be separate from a flair for clothes. “I think what women got from the show is they learned to have fun with their clothes and themselves,” says Field, “and the timing was right because women were coming into their own and it was an emancipation.”
“You do you,” sums up, in 2020s parlance, part of the SATC philosophy. Viewers could relate to the way the show acknowledged that life can be messy. “I think the thing that we were trying to say with Carrie is, you know, there don’t have to be rules,” notes Parker. “The most interesting and exciting and attractive people are the people that look most like themselves, and you didn’t have to want to mimic Carrie or be like her, but she was herself.”
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