Editor’s Note: Delving into the archives of pop culture history, “Remember When?” is a CNN Style series offering a nostalgic look at the celebrity outfits that defined their eras.
CNN
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In the first episode of season 2 of “Sex and the City” reboot “And Just Like That,” Carrie Bradshaw faces a sartorial emergency: Her custom-made gown for the so-called Met Ball (the theme of which was “Veiled Beauty”) falls through at the last minute when the designer, Smoke, fails to finish it — leaving her with only a cape.
“You must have something else fabulous to wear with my cape?” Smoke asks hopefully. “I can’t just go to my closet and find a perfect dress to wear to something called ‘Veiled Beauty,’” Bradshaw replies, before catching her own thoughts. “Wait a minute — I might have something,” she says. “I’ve only worn it once. It’s not the best memory.”
Moments later, Bradshaw is in her closet, delicately unwrapping a ghost from the past: The dramatic Vivienne Westwood wedding dress — and feathered teal bridal headpiece — she once intended to marry Mr. Big in, until he famously left her at the altar in the first “Sex and the City” movie. (The television series and sequel aired on HBO and Max, respectively, which share the same parent company as CNN: Warner Bros. Discovery.)
In the final scene of “And Just Like That,” Bradshaw steps outside her brownstone apartment on New York’s Upper East Side, donning the voluminous gown with Smoke’s cape, which, serendipitously, is in the exact same teal color as her bird fascinator and slingback shoes.
“And just like that, I repurposed my pain,” Carrie says, in her signature sign-off.
The symbolism of the repurposed garment is poignant for the 50-something tastemaker. Once entwined with heartbreak, the dress is now synonymous with glamour, resilience, and an evening of celebration rather than loss. It signals emotional growth for a character who, historically, has had a fraught relationship with nostalgia and closure.
“Bringing the dress back changes the sentiment of what it meant,” costume designer Molly Rogers (also of “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Second Act”) told CNN in a phone interview. “It shows that she has healed and is ready to replace a painful memory with a wonderful one. It’s a very Carrie moment: Sentimental, but with a hopeful twist.”
For Rogers, the fashion moment also gives the gown — first seen in the Vivienne Westwood Gold Label’s autumn/winter 2007 collection and gifted to Bradshaw by the designer herself in the movie, along with a handwritten note — the comeback it deserves.
“Sarah Jessica Parker (who plays Bradshaw) and ‘Sex and the City’ have long had a connection to Westwood, both the brand and the lady herself,” Rogers said. “So when we read in the script of ‘And Just Like That’ that Carrie would end up in the wedding dress again, it felt like a great way to honor that legacy.”
Bradshaw’s choice taps into a broader style trend among A-listers: The rising love affair with vintage fashion on the red carpet. Where once the rich and famous only appeared in the latest couture designs, today’s stars are increasingly embracing archival looks, and opting for garments layered with history.
See Zendaya’s string of vintage moments, including the 1982 haute couture YSL dress she wore at the 2021 Black Women In Hollywood Awards, or the black taffeta spring/summer 1996 Givenchy gown at the 2024 Met Gala; Olivia Rodrigo’s archival Versace at this year’s Grammys; and Cynthia Erivo’s silver Alexander McQueen for Givenchy couture gown from fall-winter 1997 at the SAG Awards in February, where the outfits are about storytelling as much as spectacle.
“When you look at archival gowns from the past you realize they’re almost like art pieces,” Rogers said. “I think many celebrities are tapping into that sensibility, and understand that the opportunity to showcase (a piece of art) is sort of amazing. That’s the magic of the archive gown,” she continued.
Reviving “old” looks isn’t just about wearing them unchanged. In “And Just Like That,” Brawshaw doesn’t simply dust off the Westwood gown; she updates it.
“For Danny and I, it was important to make the dress Met Ball-worthy,” Rogers said. “But we also asked ourselves, ‘What happens to the gown she doesn’t wear?’ We didn’t want her to just disregard it completely. Carrie is the kind of person who staples something together and goes, so we didn’t want her experience with the designer that didn’t deliver the dress to be a total failure. That’s when the idea for the cape came in.”
“And Just Like That” co-costume designer Denny Santiago fashioned the mantle, which is as sculptural as the dress itself, from a teal ball gown he found on The RealReal. The bird headpiece was restyled with a white mesh veil, while elbow-length teal opera gloves were added for extra flair — a nod to the Met Ball’s theatricality.
May 29 on Max, is set to keep archival fashion center stage. For it, costume designers Molly Rogers and Denny Santiago spent a week in London to source bespoke retro pieces (“How can you walk in Portobello and not find a hat for Carrie?” Rogers said of the experience).” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”3000″ width=”2000″ loading=’lazy’/>On Bradshaw’s wrist, Rogers and Santiago clipped a small, round pin cushion — likely from Smoke’s sewing kit — that looked like a bracelet. “I thought that was a very Carrie thing to grab,” Rogers said of the detail. “She’s known for taking whatever is in front of her and making it into an accessory. She’s an experimenter, and we wanted that to come through in this look.”
The Vivienne Westwood outfit is far from the only retro nod in “And Just Like That.” In fact, Rogers and Santiago have been weaving vintage references into the reboot from the get-go, making archival pieces a main aspect of the series’ style DNA.
Throughout the show’s two seasons (season three debuts on May 29), classic pieces from the original “Sex and the City” series, like the iconic Fendi Baguette bag, the Dior newspaper-print dress and the sea-green Versace gown that Carrie wears in the show’s two-part finale, have all made a reappearance. So have other less instantly recognizable pieces, such as a Chanel blouse Carrie first wore in episode 15 of SATC’s third season, the Miu Miu python pumps she donned in the premiere episode of its sixth and final season, and the Streets Ahead studded ‘Roger’ belt that appeared in the first SATC movie.
Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood spring/summer 2025 runway.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1280″ width=”1920″ loading=’lazy’/>“Since I worked with Pat (Field, SATC’s costume designer) on the original show, I know what pieces people want to see again,” Rogers said. But the archival references dropped into “And Just Like That” aren’t just nostalgic easter eggs for longtime fans; they’re essential storytelling tools that chart Bradshaw’s evolution, both in her life and personal style.
“Style isn’t static,” Rogers said. “As you grow older, you see a different use for things, or you cherish them in new ways. You reframe them. That’s especially true for Carrie, who’s a risk-taker.”
The Met Ball gown is the epitome of that attitude. “Clothes can be a way of revisiting the past to reinvent yourself,” Rogers said. “The beauty of fashion and costume design is taking something tried-and-true out of the closet and doing something different with it.” After all, she noted, “why would you wear a bird hat the same way you did a decade ago?”
