Patricia Field, the lady who put Carrie Bradshaw in Manolo Blahniks, tells us about her style inspiration for Sex and The City 2 and why even her most fashionable leading lady, like the rest of us, needs to hang out in a plaid shirt.
Sex and the City is a very fashion-driven film, how mindful were you of trends when creating the wardrobe for the second movie?
I’m not mindful of trends. I kind of run away from that because what’s going to be there next season is not going to be there the season after. And movies last a long time. If you look at Breakfast at Tiffany’s today, it looks absolutely gorgeous. You don’t say it looks out of style.
What was the single most influential factor in the way you dressed Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda for this film?
If you find your hook in the script, you go with it. In the first movie it was that five years has passed since the TV show. I had to fill in the space of that time, and arrive at the present. They’re the same people, but you know, things do change slightly. So it was in that way that I wanted to focus. I just imagined how each one was. For example, Carrie continued writing professionally. Her look was so influenced by her profession. She was a thinker she was always analyzing everything. I thought, the funky part of Carrie would still be there, but the edges would be a bit smoother so to speak. The second movie was driven by a complete different set of circumstances. The main thing is they get invited to the Middle East by a sheik for a 10-star vacation. So this was my motivation. The anticipation of a trip that they never even could imagine.
Do you think the girls still reflect the way women dress?
I don’t know if they ever did. I think maybe they set the bar or the aspiration level. I hear from people that Sex and the City changed the way women dressed. [When dressing the characters] I reflect the way I think NYC women dress; it comes from inside of me. It’s based on a little bit of fantasy, the history of glamour and my mindset throughout my life.
I read somewhere that you mixed high and low fashion brands for this film.
I always mix high and low, it’s my style. It gives you a wider variety, a bigger palette. Why stay with one designer? Why stay with only designers? You can have it all. I mix in H&M, Topshop — Zara is a big one that I use. [For SATC2] I used a lot of vintage. I was yearning for chic simplicity after all the past years of post ’50s and ’60s geometric, crazy shapes. Carrie wore a plaid blue shirt in the movie. And it was like, ‘Oh you’re just hanging around. Lets put you in an old plaid shirt and jeans.’ I mean you can’t get dressed up every five minutes. Lets give it a breather for one scene.
Is it true that the wardrobe cost $10 million dollars?
I just read $4 million. I don’t know how much it was, but I think it was more around $1 million. Usually I know because budget is extremely important, but it seemed like with this movie there was no stopping. The whole mood was like, ‘What do you need? Get it.’ And after a while I was like, ‘They have an unlimited budget I’m not going to worry about this anymore.’
You designed a limited edition Sex and the City 2 bottle for Skyy vodka. I can practically hear the Cosmopolitans being shaken up now.
The inspiration was that [both brands] are world labels. [So I thought] lets take the iconic skyline in Sex and the City and pop in an Eiffel Tower or Big Ben, it will make it more worldy. I think the twinkly stars really define the life of these girls in New York.
