It’s All About The Hats {+ More Style Tips From And Just Like That}

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The influence of Sex and the City’s outfits was far reaching, writes Rachelle Unreich. So what of its sequel And Just Like That?

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Even before watching the first episode of And Just Like That, I was excited about the outfits. Would Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw still wear a tutu on occasion? (Yes.) Had she traded her trademark high heels (Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik) for flats? (No.) Most importantly, would she look ridiculous trying to be high-fashion in her mid-50s even though she’d left her trendsetting 30s far, far, behind? (No, again).

To be honest, none of the original Sex and the City clothes stayed with me for the subsequent decades. Rather, I was left with an impression: clothes could be loud and fun and clashing and interesting. It influenced what I wore, especially on the occasion when one of SATC’s costume designers, Rebecca Field, attended the Melbourne Fashion Festival. I wore a striped Trelise Cooper jacket which had a series of coloured ribbons at the back which fell way past the jacket’s hemline, and I was disappointed when she didn’t comment on it. (I had better luck years later when the numero uno SATC costume designer, Patricia Field, years later, said something approving about my outfit.)

Would the SATC sequel, And Just Like That, make a similar impression on me?

The answer is yes. Unlike the original, I don’t study it for Actual Fashion Tips. (SATC prompted me to buy purple perspex-heeled Prada shoes that were unwearable without the use of a walking cane, yet they still sit in my wardrobe like treasured artworks.) If I did, I would dive into millinery, because in And Just Like That, Carrie is all about the hat.

She wears floppy sunhats with ridiculous bows and nifty sweet circular discs with fine detailing. She wears hats that come with coloured scarves that tie under her chin and hats that seem to actually serve the purpose of keeping the UV rays away from her face. She wears jaunty hats and practical hats and wildly impractical ones, and I am here for all of it. One time, she wears what looks like a floral brooch on her head, and I am here for that, too, although I lost some of her dialogue in my attempt to work it out.

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““You don’t have to dress your age. You don’t have to forget who you once were. If you want to throw all the rules out the window, you’re perfectly entitled to do so. You’ve earned it.””

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Perhaps I am noticing the fashion more, this time around, because it offers a real blueprint of what a woman my age can wear. That is: everything. Carrie makes the ridiculous sublime: the peach-coloured nightie combined with a lace cardigan, or the striped long-sleeved tee paired with a white tutu so long it trailed behind her like a bridal train. But I’m also thinking of the metallic striped dress with glittery heels.

And it’s not just Carrie I love. Her real estate agent Seema is a vision in shimmery neutrals. Although I’ve seen her dabble in a leopard-print ensemble, her happy place is in the oyster-to-brown colour range in satiny, sleek, body-hugging pants and slip skirts, tanks and trench coats. She looks like a jaguar that’s dressed for cocktails and caviar. Seema is single and seemingly looking for a man, but I look at that wardrobe and say, honey, you don’t need anyone because surely you have a legion of admirers waiting to worship at your liquid-clothed altar.

There’s also Lisa Todd Wexley, who’s meant to be a fashion icon, but she’s slightly too Net-A-Porter with a Celebrity Stylist for me; I preferred her mother-in-law’s space age silver jacket at her dinner party.

But I love Carrie because she makes no concessions for her age, even though she perhaps ought to. Facing hip surgery, she laments her temporary “socks and [Birken]stocks,” comparing her look to a Vermont art teacher. In another scene, she admits that the only pair of flats she owns is a pair of TOMS she bought in 2007 in order to feel good. (For every TOMS purchase, the company donate a pair of shoes to a child in need.) That’s OK, I don’t subscribe to that fashion tip, either. But, boy, do I love the aspirational quality of it.

Am I saying that everyone has to dress like Carrie, Miranda or Charlotte, or aspire to? Not at all. What I love about the show is that it gives you permission to do so if you want. But it also presents an entirely different type of look – that of the non-binary Che Diaz, whose look is mainly black-coloured and street smart and androgynous and entirely hot.

And Just Like That tells us you don’t have to dress your age. You don’t have to forget who you once were. If you want to throw all the rules out the window, you’re perfectly entitled to do so. You’ve earned it.

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Words_ Rachelle Unreich
Photo_ Supplied

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