‘And Just Like That…’: Sarah Jessica Parker on Wearing Carrie’s Wedding Dress Again
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for And Just Like That… Season 2 premiere “Met Cute.”]
And Just Like That… Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) is back in her Vivienne Westwood wedding dress for a very special occasion as she and her fashionable friends hit up one of the biggest events of the year in the Season 2 premiere, “Met Cute.”
Set to attend the Met Gala as a friend of Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker), Carrie turned to her pal Jackie Nee (Bobby Lee) and his designer girlfriend Smoke (Bethlehem Million) for a one-of-a-kind design worthy of the ball’s theme, “Veiled Beauty.” When sizing doesn’t go according to plan, Carrie’s left to think fast with her ensemble.
(Credit: Courtesy of Max)
Turning to the gown, which is tied to less spectacular memories (such as Big ditching her at the altar), Carrie pairs it with the cape Smoke made her and accessorizes with that iconic bird in her hair. “It was really sentimental and exciting to see what we were gonna layer on top of it, what it could be, how it was adaptable, literally speaking but also metaphorically speaking,” Sarah Jessica Parker tells TV Insider.
It was an idea that was in the works for quite a while, according to the star. “Typically, Michael [Patrick King] comes to me a few months before we start, we talk about the season, and he pitches me the big themes. So I knew about [the dress and the Met Gala], and we needed to know about that because it was quite a big event to unearth that dress in London and get it back into our hands and clear it through customs and try it on and see if it still fit.”
(Credit: Courtesy of Max)
The dress was particularly important to series creator King, who notes, “The reason I wanted to get her in the wedding gown was for the image. I thought it would be beautiful to show someone moving on and taking something painful and doing it a new way.” While the first time Carrie wore the dress was an unpleasant experience, the pain of being left at the altar isn’t anything compared to And Just Like That…‘s Season 1 premiere shocker when Big died from a heart attack.
In Season 2, King says, “It’s about taking the pain, leaving it behind, and turning it into something else. So then you have to decide what kind of plot devices are you gonna get to make somebody who was jilted in a wedding gown put it back on.” It turns out, it’s the Met Gala!
“It was amazing, and it was a nice challenge to figure out what it would be this time around,” Parker echoes. “It was nice to give it some poetry that was happy.”
(Credit: Courtesy of Max)
As for focusing on the getting ready aspect rather than the event itself, King explains, “We realized the most fun for the audience might be behind the scenes because everybody’s seen the staircase with Beyonce and everybody on it. So that’s already in your mind. What we thought was funny was the high jinks of getting to the Met Gala.”
When it came to Charlotte’s look, star Kristin Davis was thrilled to go through the Met Gala experience, particularly to see her character pushed out of her comfort zone in fashion. “When you go to the Met Gala, a designer will say, ‘We would like to dress you,’ and then you have to go with what they want. So it might be somewhat different than how you normally dress, which is fun for Charlotte to get to be a little bit outside her normal comfort zone.”
But perhaps the most daring of all Met Gala looks from the episode was Lisa’s stunning red gown, which Nicole Ari Parker was eager to don. “It was epic,” she says. “I mean, custom-made Valentino for someone like me on Sex and the City who was a starving actress in New York with Sarita Choudhury. And to come 25 years later… [in] this gorgeous, unreal, 15-foot silk chiffon, walking across Park Avenue. I’m getting woozy even thinking about it.” To sum it up, “I was honored.”
The honor is all ours. Don’t miss the ladies in more fashionable moments this season as And Just Like That… continues on Max, and let us know what you thought of their Met Gala looks in the comments section, below.
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