After 27 years, 94 episodes, a questionable three-series reboot and a pair of films we’d rather not talk about, last week’s “heavy-handed” finale of And Just Like That marked the last appearance of TV’s best-dressed character: Carrie Bradshaw. As we say a final farewell, for this week’s newsletter we asked Guardian writers for their most memorable Carrie outfits.
I’ll start with …
The LGD | season two, episode 15
Despite the OTT tulle dresses, tie-dye capris and ridiculous accessories, (kneepad tights anyone?) it’s the little black grey dress that she wears to brunch that is most memorable to me.
After a disappointing night with Vaughn Wysel (Justin Theroux), Carrie emerges from her apartment not downbeat but giddy, knowing she has a story that is going to make her gang shriek with laughter over eggs and cosmos.
I love how she wears what could be considered a classic date-night dress to see her girlfriends. The gold strappy sandals, big Gucci embossed shoulder bag, signature nameplate necklace and classic aviators all add to the confident mood. In today’s world of conservative tradwife dressing, it’s refreshing to see a single, thirtysomething woman dressing for herself. It’s also a nice flipped bird to those who think age should determine what one can and can’t wear.
The Stella McCartney horse print trousers | season four, episode 11
The early 2000s was a weird time when it came to what people wore. You had hipster jeans designed to reveal hip bones, the pob (Victoria Beckham’s bob) and those capri pants that are threatening to come back.
By contrast, Sex and the City, and Carrie in particular, seemed like a grown-up world of aspiration, where people didn’t just look at clothes worn on the catwalk, they actually wore them. For me, nothing said this more than these trousers. Part of Stella McCartney’s last collection for Chloé, the horse on the right leg was typical of the playful absurdity that she had added to the French brand. The fact that they were on TV was perfect for the fashion-literate character that we were getting to know, but it was also a genius wink from costume designer Patricia Field to a fashion-loving audience who would be able to ID the design.
While I have never been lucky enough to own a pair – they sell for upwards of £1,665 – I have been able to enjoy them again, when Olivia Rodrigo wore a pair in 2023. And I have managed, through The Outnet, to score another of McCartney’s animal-related offerings: a pair of cat trousers from her autumn/winter 2016 collection.
Lauren Cochrane, senior writer, fashion
The see-through cami and jorts | season five, episode one
Season five gets a lot of flak: Sarah Jessica Parker was pregnant, so they only filmed eight episodes. It also meant swapping Carrie’s midriff belts and naked dresses for bump-hiding babydoll silhouettes and Juicy Couture. And there was the divisive short bob. But this was actually my favourite Carrie during a recent rewatch.
She embraces singledom. I adore the opening episode, the first post-9/11, as she romances herself in NYC. She’s at her most candid, too, talking about the loneliness that being on her own can come with. It feels like a gear shift in her mid-30s, so I have a soft spot for these more out-of-character outfits.
Maybe it’s last week’s heatwave making me pick this outfit – floaty white cami, black bra, long denim shorts, mesh heels, bandana – but I just think she looks SO COOL (literally and vibe-wise). It screams freedom – especially for someone who suffers tummy bloat on the daily. God bless the day I stopped worrying about my mismatched bra being on show. In fact, I have just bought a size-too-big cami on Vinted, which I intend to wear with a red Agent Provocateur bra that deserves to be seen by all when the sun’s out again. The bandana and mesh heels? With total respect, I’ll leave that to gen Z.
Hollie Richardson, assistant TV editor
The cowboy hat and crop top | season two, episode 17
This summer might have been the season of peak cowboy fashion, but, as usual, Miss Bradshaw did it first (and, let’s face it, better). It’s often Carrie’s dresses that get all the glory – the Dior newspaper print, the Oscar de la Renta ballgown – but for me, her two-pieces are just as striking. Take this look from the Hamptons beach party in the penultimate episode of season two: a snakeskin bandeau top, a striped skirt, and a cowboy hat perched on top.
The effect is simultaneously retro and hyper-modern. There’s something 90s in the skirt, yet it also has the DNA of the modern festival uniform: skin-baring separates, animal print, and of course, the hat. I still think about it whenever I’m getting dressed for a festival. It’s proof that mismatched textures and prints can add up to something more chic than a pristine head-to-toe label moment.
It’s a shame the scene that delivered the fit is so devastating – Carrie seeing Big with Natasha for the first time, and, in response, running down the beach to throw up. Still, she looked damned good while doing it.
Emma Loffhagen, acting commissioning editor, Saturday magazine
The Vivienne Westwood green foil miniskirt | season four, episode nine
Carrie Bradshaw is the queen of the styling detail: ruffled sandals with bodycon dresses, berets with pant suits, and sequin bags with everything. Every look shines against the concrete NYC backdrop with a ‘cherry on the top’ styling kiss. But for me, nothing compares to the Vivienne Westwood green foil miniskirt with its Playboy bunny ‘tail’ ruffle.
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The classic white shirt, simple chain necklace and red heels shouldn’t work together. Red and green should never be seen! It’s not Christmas! But it works – of course it does. Classic with a twist is exactly what Carrie does best.
Melanie Wilkinson, styling editor
The white Dior slip dress | season two, episode 18
I adore (pun intended) the white Dior slip revenge dress – it has everything: symbolism, edge (white! To an engagement party!), a cleavage, a see-through heel and a ridiculous bag. (Although I have also enjoyed the Simone Rocha looks in this series of AJLT).
Jenny Stevens, deputy features editor
The pink cap sleeve dress | season two, episode 18
At the end of season two, Carrie meets Big in an outfit that I have been trying to recreate for the past 18 years. A simple pale pink wrap dress, with spiked heels and a sparkly pink handbag. I remember seeing the dress for the first time and feeling a longing so intense it was like physical pain. I spent the next three years stealing my mother’s flesh-coloured nighties and trying to squish my huge feet into her wedding shoes.
At lunch, Carrie behaves badly – she screams when Big tells her he’s marrying his new girlfriend and runs out of the restaurant – her chaos somehow cutting through her glamour. I was 15 when I first saw this scene, and Carrie looked to me like womanhood. She was cigarettes and heartbreak and screaming at your ex over lunch. I’m 33 now, the same age as Carrie was in that scene, but she still feels unattainably grown-up to me. I rewatched the scene for the thousandth time last night and then spent 75 minutes tracking down a replica made and sold by a superfan.. It arrives in a week but I know from bitter experience that I won’t look like Carrie in it. I bought a slightly different replica pink-Carrie-dress at 18, and at 27, and again at 31. Still, I live in hope.
Kitty Drake, Guardian researcher
The tie-dye cami and printed skirt | season two, episode 15
The top is duck-egg blue and purple batik. A Pepto-Bismol pink bra Top C’s out from underneath. The skirt’s sky blue is laced with a golden print and the bag is baseline red with bouquets of orange. Any one of these prints on its own would be a lot. But together, I would argue, they’re just enough; their notes somehow find the sweetness of a bluegrass harmony – this is Patricia Field (long-time SATC costume designer) at the height of her powers.
Carrie’s not dressed for family, she says. And she’s not, technically. Because dressing to “meet the family” – in this instance, of her current flame, the short story writer Vaughn – would probably, typically, mean something more pared back. She mightn’t have opted for a Playboy bunny necklace, for instance? But that’s just one of the things that’s so great about this outfit, beyond how aesthetically lovely I think it is. It’s not necessarily what she would have chosen for this meeting, but it somehow works. Or maybe more so, it just doesn’t matter, because she’s welcomed so openly and sincerely, with lox, an invitation to speak at a seminar at Columbia on cultural zeitgeist and a “hey, ’sup” from one of Vaughn’s sisters.
This was to me something of a revelation. Her ability to dismiss feeling inappropriately dressed and find herself embraced and unjudged in the bosom of heretofore strangers. It felt thrilling, as someone who has at times had anxieties about the idea of finding myself wearing an outfit I hadn’t planned to wear in a given situation, like bumping into an old boss wearing my moseying-up-the-street getup – a baggy T-shirt, some kind of jogging bottoms and Birkenstocks, say. It sounds inane (and maybe it is) but I think some of it has to do with looking to clothes to lend you confidence rather than feeling it intrinsically. Wearing the wrong thing at the wrong time, for someone struggling with feeling comfortable in their own skin, is a recipe for a crumble. Sense of self shouldn’t be this fragile and yet sometimes it is. So seeing Carrie brush it off felt genuinely refreshing – emboldening, even. Plus, this episode has the line, “No one who went sleeveless ever won a Pulitzer,” in it, and that’s great too.
Ellie Violet Bramley, freelance writer
The Prada co-ord | season four, episode one
One of my favourite Carrie Bradshaw looks has to be the red Prada co-ord she wore for her 35th birthday. The outfit itself is exquisite and combines one of my favourite styling techniques, monochrome fashion (I have blue and black Issey Miyake two-pieces, which I wear like a uniform) and strategic exposures of skin: the top of the outfit is long sleeved, but it is cropped, exposing her midriff.
But mostly I love this look because it speaks to the experience of public humiliation while wearing incredibly beautiful clothing. Nobody turns up to Carrie’s birthday dinner, and on her way home she drops her birthday cake on the street, scooping it up with cardboard while being shouted at by construction workers. I remember once wearing a viscose Martine Rose suit and, strutting through the middle of Waterloo, stacking over myself so badly that people came over to help me up. I also once got into a shouting match with a rude stranger on the tube while wearing a Bode jacket that had a donkey sewn on the back with colourful string. In my delusion I hope that witnesses thought, “He might be caught embarrassing himself but he’d never be caught dead in a bad outfit.”
Jason Okundaye, assistant newsletter editor and writer
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