Whatever your opinion on And Just Like That, one thing that is always going to keep Sex And The City fans coming back to the reboot is the fashion.
The original saw designer Patricia Field in charge of the characters’ wardrobes, and when she didn’t return for the revival, her former protégés Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago took over at the helm.
HuffPost UK was lucky enough to sit down with Molly and Danny to discuss some of And Just Like That’s most memorable outfits – from that iconic Met Gala moment, to a certain photo that split fans right down the middle.
Here’s what we learned when we met them...
We have to start with the Met Gala. Carrie and Charlotte’s looks were scripted, but the team were allowed to let their imaginations run wild when it came to Seema and LTW
“It was written in the script that Carrie is going to repurpose the Westwood wedding gown, so that was one thing. And the other thing was that Charlotte would be wearing something that is equestrian-inspired,” Danny explains. “And the theme of the Met Ball was ‘veiled beauty’, so it all tied into that.”
He continues: “What we had to do was come up with a concept for Charlotte that we felt was going to be equestrian, and that was also going to work with the idea.
“We found the beautiful latex corset, and we wanted to update it, and give it a little bit of like a Betty Page vibe, make it sexy, not make it such a traditional equestrian look with the bustle and the skirt.”
Of Charlotte’s Stephen Jones top hat, Molly adds: “If you’re going to do an equestrian hat, it better be British or you’re a wreck. I mean, come on.”
Inspiration struck for Lisa’s look after a trip to a Valentino show in Rome
“We knew the Met Gala episode was coming up,” Danny recalls. “We saw that Philip Treacy headpiece go down the runway at that show, and we were like, ‘well that’s kind of like a veil, it’s a cage, it covers her eyes’.
“But we didn’t even know if they would lend it to us – at that point we just saw it and we were like, ‘oh my god’. It was such an amazing piece.”
In the end, when Danny and Molly reached out to Valentino, the fashion house’s team was not only “very open and very willing” to working together, they even ended up custom-designing the rest of Lisa’s look.
“They extended the train even longer, so in that scene it could really extend across the street,” Danny enthuses. “It works, it’s gorgeous.”
As for Seema’s look – we have a feeling the character herself might not be thrilled to hear that it was discovered during a sale at an outlet mall
“We found that shopping in Florida, we always go to this big outlet mall there that has all the big brand stores there,” Danny reveals.
“So, we went to the Balmain boutique there, and we found this runway piece that was hanging there, at a good price, on sale. That gown was something we just saw and we were like, ‘that’s going to be the dress for Seema at the Met Ball’.”
In fact, considering Carrie ended up repurposing an old outfit, it was her look that caused the most stress
While Sarah Jessica Parker has held onto a lot of Carrie’s old looks in her personal archives, the character’s Vivienne Westwood wedding dress was one that the British fashion house had held onto.
“We were concerned about the Vivienne Westwood [dress] for a while,” Molly admits, revealing that two months before filming was due to begin, the team had still not tracked the dress down, “and number two, once we did hear from them, it needed some repair.
“So we were kind of like, ‘yikes’,” she remembers, with Danny adding: “We didn’t know what was going to show up.”
The most difficult part of the whole process was a look that didn’t even make it to the Met Gala
Before digging out her original wedding dress, Carrie was, of course, supposed to attend the Met Ball in an outfit put together by her colleague’s girlfriend, Smoke.
Unfortunately for Smoke, things didn’t quite go to plan.
“The hardest part was, I think, what was the gown going to be that Carrie couldn’t wear? That [process] went on forever,” Molly shares.
She continues: “It needed to do so much in the scene. The director wanted her arms over her head, so it had to be a column, like she couldn’t get it over her shoulder blades or whatever.
“And then SJ kind of wanted to hop around in it. It had a lot of things it had to do.”
There was also the issue that it had to be less impressive than Carrie’s Vivienne Westwood dress, so the reveal felt like more of a pay-off, “otherwise she’d have just thrown the cape on it and gone”, Molly points out.
Danny eventually found a dress that matched the colour of Carrie’s “bird” accessory, which they decided to turn into a cape “so there was something of Smoke’s that made it onto the Met Ball red carpet”.
“We didn’t want Smoke to be a total failure,” Molly says.
Overall, the costume department is able to have a lot more fun with fashion in season two than season one
The overarching theme of season one was Carrie and her grief, whereas on season two, Danny observes that the characters are “all going out more” and “dating”.
He explains: “I think there’s a lot more fun, because the last season, with the funeral and the process of what Carrie was going through, you know, we didn’t have those sort of times to be able to have those big scenes with parties and things like that.
“I think now, coming into this season, there’s a lot more going on. The girls are having a lot more fun. So, we’re able to have a lot more fun with the fashion, I think. We’re bringing in more bright colours.”
Still, they don’t play favourites
“They’re all fun to dress,” Danny insists. “We really do have a lot of fun dressing all the girls.”
Changes in one character’s life means the team can spread their wings a lot more too
When we pick things up with Miranda, she’s relocated to LA and is still in the throes of romance with her new partner, comedian Che Diaz.
However, there’s still a lot of uncertainty hanging over the character, which is reflected in her wardrobe.
Molly says: “In [Cynthia Nixon’s] fittings, there’s so much in there that’s like, ‘this is when you’re a student’, ‘this is when you’re sexy’, it’s kind of compartmentalised. There’s a lot of different things happening.”
Danny agrees: “There’s the work-wear, to being the student, and then from being the student to sort of trying to figure out your sexuality, and then what’s that wardrobe going to be in the bedroom? And then, going out to California, there’s this West Coast vibe now that’s playing into it.”
One scene early on in the season – where Miranda helps a new friend clean up a beach – put many fans in mind of the character’s fashion journey in the first few seasons of Sex And The City.
“Someone earlier today was like, ‘what is Miranda doing in a bucket hat?’. That was one of Pat’s favourite things to do on her!” Molly insists. “Big time, with a hood on top!”
And there’s one other detail that means the new season is giving us a lot more fashion
“Season two goes a full year, so we got winter, spring, summer and fall,” Molly says, adding that “that really helps” showcase as much of the clothing as possible.
By the way, here’s exactly what happened with that very first divisive promo photo
Alright, cast your mind back to this time two years ago, when the very first photo of Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis on set emerged.
The publicity photo marked the first time the trio had been seen without co-star Kim Cattrall, and it garnered a bit of a mixed response. Well, there’s a reason that photo looked the way it did, Molly and Danny explain.
“It wasn’t a photo-shoot, they were all ready to go to work,” Molly clarifies.
She continues: “Before we started shooting, they put [the three stars] together. That day, Kristin wasn’t working, they pulled her in, and she was like, ‘my favourite outfit is this high-waisted black skirt, and a black-and-white polkadot off-the-shoulder top’, and we were like, ‘we love that outfit, you look like an Italian sex bomb’.
“Carrie was in black-and-white gingham, and Cynthia was in kind of lawyer mode – those two were already dressed for their scene.”
“They grabbed them, took them around the corner and shot it,” Danny says. “And then that became this photo that everybody was looking at!”
While Molly insists she “liked” the photo, Danny concedes that it “didn’t give you a lot of direction on where they were kind of going, though, right”.
It sounds like that photo could have been even more out there, though
“Remember SJ wanted to wear those patent high heels and she didn’t want to buckle them?” Molly asks her colleague.
Danny says: “She just wanted loose straps, and I was like, ‘people are going to go absolutely nuts, they’re going to come for our heads if we let her be there with unbuckled shoes’.”
Fans felt rather differently when the show actually got up and running, though
While Molly admits she “doesn’t really tune in” to what fans are saying about the fashion, Danny says: “For the fans that had seen months and months of paparazzi pictures, and couldn’t understand why [the cast] had an Ugg with an evening dress on or whatever – I think it made more sense, then.
“When they actually started to see the scenes and see how the actual looks, things then kind of calmed down with the comments.”
And Just Like That airs on Thursdays on Sky Comedy and Now.