Essay for WeddingFashionPolice Blog May 08
Sex in the City: The Wedding Dress Controversy
Sex in the City has always had its roots in fashion. From Series 1, millions of women tuned in religiously each week to see what quirky trend Carrie would set next, what waiting list Samantha was on for the next must-have bag of the season, and what shoe designer was set to become the next household name. The fact that few of us could afford the price tags to accompany the labels didn’t stop us from getting excited over a glimpse of a new pair of silk Manolo pumps, or a crocodile skin Berkley bag that looked large enough to house a family of small dogs. The show was more about how you expressed yourself, and the fashion always seemed accessible.
The end of the series created a void in many women’s television schedules that was ironically filled with uniform clad characters working in hospitals or police stations. It seemed we had to return to the glossy magazines for fashion ideas. While these fashion bibles have always been a staple of any good girl’s style education, they remain aloof and impersonal in typical bookish manner. Only TV can give us real, moving, breathing, menstruating, weight-fluctuating, job switching women to give us examples of how we can mesh the random collection of items in our wardrobe into our own individual sense of style. And the SITC girls did it so well.
So it’s no surprise that the launch of the movie has created such a flux of fashion commentary. Reams of paper and billions of kilobytes have already been filled with comments, both bad and good, about what the girls are wearing, with Carrie’s wedding dress causing the most sensation.
Like most of Carrie’s outfits, the Vivienne Westwood creation is pure love-it-or-loath-it fashion. While most people express an overwhelming dislike for the gown, I find it hard to see why. The silk gown is immaculately tailored and does a fabulous job of making Sarah Jessica Parker’s androgynous frame look feminine, and although it does have over-top proportions of buffon layers and highly stylized bodice it is noticeably lacking in any frills, ruffles, sparkles or sequins to push the designer statement over the edge. At the end of the day (or the movie) would you really expect to see Carrie in anything that resembled an off-the-rack, run of the mill gown? This is a lady who wore a pink tutu in public. Imagining her gliding up the aisle in an elegant silhouette satin number or timeless princess cut gown seems out of character.
Such classic style was better expressed by Charlotte in her Badgley Mischka gown for her wedding to Harry, or her Vera Wang gown when she married Trey. Miranda might wear an ivory suit, while Samantha would dare to bare- swanning down the aisle in ... well, it just wouldn’t happen, would it? Each woman has her own unique personality, which is reflected through their choice in clothes. We have watched these characters for years, and have grown to love them and their sense of style.
One of the things we loved most about Carrie was her quirky dress sense, and who better than Queen Viv of the Fashionverse to help her make a bold look on her wedding day.