It’s time to reclaim Carrie Bradshaw as a fashion icon

With the launch of the Sex and the City follow-up series And Just Like That… we can stop pretending that we are all Mirandas and embrace our inner Carries. In recent years, the revelation that you were Carrie Bradshaw in any online quiz, had most people clicking for a do-over but the sequel, screening in Australia on Binge, restores the fashion credentials of the much-maligned character and the actress who plays her, Sarah Jessica Parker.

From the moment Carrie returns to our screens in the first episode wearing a vintage beige Claude Montana jumpsuit, embellished Dries Van Noten jacket, jaunty feathered hat accessorised with two handbags (actual handbags, Kristin Davis as Charlotte and Cynthia Nixon as Miranda deserve more credit than that) the show’s fashion footing is assured. The hat might be a bit much, but a more is more approach has always been one of the series’ great pleasures.

Yes, the movie Sex and the City 2 was an abomination with a side serve of kaftan overkill. Yes, a lot of the original story lines from the first series have not aged well and yes, Aiden was the sensible romantic choice. But the fashion threads, woven throughout Carrie’s wardrobe, are stronger than the fabric used to make Kim Kardashian’s Skims.

There is a contagious joy to the way costume designers Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago, heirs to Patricia Field’s magpie sensibility from the original show, layer jewellery, vintage finds and clothes from Carrie’s earlier wardrobe in And Just Like That…, which is more satisfying than seeing an influencer pose in a monogrammed Burberry bikini in a sponsored Instagram post.

When Carrie appeared in the revival wearing an oversized white blazer, on top of a silk ensemble with a blue floral brooch from season 3 of SATC and the blue Manolo Blahniks from the controversial wedding to Big, I clapped loudly. The outfit walked the fine line between aspiration and accessibility, before completely giving in to whimsy. It was pure fashion and that’s what we should expect from the character who introduced many of us to the beauty of John Galliano’s work for Dior and Vivienne Westwood’s anglophilia.

The Carrie fashion backlash became entwined with the character’s questionable life choices and perhaps the magazine overkill of SJP covers at the beginning of the millennium, filling in on the months when Jennifer Aniston needed to rest.

People have criticised Carrie’s choice of a man’s shirt as a dress, knit romper suits, the silk bandana phase and extraneous belts as midriff warmers. Memories are short. They forget that an addiction to red high heel shoe soles, nameplate necklaces and Prada prints also originated with the columnist who appears to have been paid $1000 per word for her musings.

Recent Carrie-bashing has also been ageist, as Parker pointed out in her recent US Vogue interview, with people saying that the 56-year-old is ignoring what real women want to wear. It’s almost as if critics are willing the character to appear in a pair of orthopaedic Kumfs and a sensible dress from Seed.