Sarah Jessica Parker aka Carrie Bradshaw in the $5 tutu © HBOThe costume designer behind the Sex and the City TV series has revealed that not all the costumes on Carrie Bradshaw were designer.
In fact, the white tutu sported by Sarah Jessica Parker in the opening credits is actually a $5 (£3) find from a bargain bin.
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“I was in a showroom and there was a bucket on the floor, for like, $5 each or something, and I pull out this tulle skirt, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know, let’s just take this. We’ll see’,” Patricia told Emmy TV Legends.
“So when I showed it to Sarah Jessica, she loved it. And I said, ‘Okay, so we’ll put it with a little T-shirt,’ and she loved it. She felt it.
”But the pair had to persuade the show’s skeptical producer Darren Starr to let SJP wear it in the credits.
”He didn’t get it. I don't blame him - it’s not his thing. And we were coming to him with something strange, in his mind. So we had to convince him.”
Patricia Field (left) and on the SATC set with Sarah Jessica Parker (right) © HBOPatricia explained there were four looks shortlisted for Carrie to wear in the opening credits, but to get the look they wanted, the pair had to convince the show’s creators. Their preferred look was for SJP to wear a tight, colourful dress, but Patricia and Sarah Jessica insisted the t-shirt and tutu combo would never go out of fashion.
Fortunately they won and the iconic credits sequence was born.
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Patricia was also influential in giving Carrie a broader fashion sense, steering her away from entirely designer brands and mixing her look up with quirky piece, including the cute ‘Carrie’ necklace in season two.
“That name necklace was something that black kids, Puerto Rican kids, borough kids, ethnic kids had been wearing forever, that was just a statement,” Patricia said.
“I had one made up, with her name, and [Sarah Jessica] liked it, after all, it was a piece of New York, a real piece of New York, and it wasn't just Manhattan it was from outside Manhattan from the other parts of New York where the people live.
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“Somebody like Carrie, living in New York, would have caught it somewhere, and seen it on somebody, and liked it, so it had that reason for being.”
