Fashion Victim: Fashion we could all Carrie off

May 22 2008 by Emma Johnson, Liverpool Daily Post

SEX and the City was about a lot of words beginning with “f”. Friendship, family, failure and fidelity all featured but the show was most definitely about fashion.

The prom dresses, the huge corsages, the designer handbags, the strings of pearls, the bakers’ boy caps, the skyscraper heels and the horseshoe necklaces. All of these things made their way into my wardrobe, thanks to the influence of one Carrie Bradshaw.

If she wore it, I had to have it and I wasn’t the only one.

It is because of Carrie Bradshaw that my first stop on a weekend break to New York four years ago was Manolo Blahnik (31, West 54th St – near Fifth Ave – if you are interested), where my husband had to watch as I pawed all the beautiful creations on offer, and it is most definitely her fault that I came home from that trip with my first pair of Jimmy Choos.

For good or bad, the show, thanks largely to the genius of stylist Patricia Field – who this week announced she would be designing a range for M&S – changed the way women dressed everywhere.

That’s not to say Carrie always got it right.

There were the dodgy hotpants (season four), some very drag queen-like eye make-up (season five) and what was it with having to show off her bra (every season)? But when Carrie did get it right, she really nailed it.

Remember the amazing Richard Tyler dress she wore in season two to meet Big, only for the pair of them to end up soaking wet in the lake minutes later?

Or the stunning Donna Karan chiffon confection she wore to the wedding where Big wouldn’t sign the card?

Then there was the fabulous Vivienne Westwood tailored suit she wore for her first day at Vogue.

And one can only imagine how many Juicy Couture terry towelling sundresses flew out of stores thanks to Sarah Jessica Parker’s pregnancy halfway through season five?

The fashion highpoints are many.

A recent survey suggested that to live like Carrie, British women would need to spend at least £10,572 per year on clothes and shoes.

Personally, I think that is a rather conservative estimate, given that a pair of Manolos wouldn’t leave you much change from £500 these days, but it is obvious that no-one apart from maybe football wags could really behave the way she did.

She even admitted herself, after spending some $40,000 on designer footwear, that she would “literally be the old woman who lived in her shoes!”

Buying designer labels wasn’t and isn’t the point of Carrie Bradshaw.

Fans would have been fools to try and emulate her wardrobe, but at least we could be inspired by it . . . even if our other halves despaired every time we were.