And just like that ... we're obsessing over Carrie Bradshaw's style again

When Sarah Jessica Parker first met with the Sex and the City costume department ahead of the series premiere in 1998, two items sat on a couch awaiting her inspection: a vintage clutch and a vintage fur. To Molly Rogers, costume designer for both SATC and its spinoff, And Just Like That…, those items instantly set the tone for years of fashion to come.

“It wasn’t like we went to Barneys,” Rogers tells Yahoo Entertainment. The purse and coat, purchased at a downtown consignment store, could only have been found by a true fashionista who embraced the eclectic.

Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw is the ultimate Cinderella story — an aspirational romance in style and substance. The character didn’t become an instant icon by following the rules. Instead, Carrie invented a style all her own: showing up for picnics in dirndls, wearing belts around her bare midriff and pairing $5 tutus with stilettos that most of us could only dream of purchasing. That playful, seamless high-low blend — thrift store finds paired with designer couture — is her fashion fingerprint. It endures to this day, as young shoppers scour their local thrift stores for treasures to pair with more modern finds.

Maiia Krylova, founder of the popular Instagram account @carriebradshaws_outfits — which meticulously tracks down items from Carrie’s closet — believes the character’s signature style is “the ultimate expression of fearless individuality and emotional storytelling through fashion.”

“She didn’t dress to impress others or to follow rules; she dressed to express exactly who she was at that moment,” Krylova told Yahoo Entertainment.

Nevertheless, Carrie’s fashion maximalism seems to be hitting differently these days. Her outfits on And Just Like That…,  the sequel series to SATC, have repeatedly gone viral, and not always in a good way, as fans scrutinize Carrie’s giant hats and pigeon purses and declare them over-the-top.

But why all the sudden pearl-clutching over the woman who once wore a bird on her head to her own wedding? Isn’t all of this in character?

One could attribute a healthy portion of the critiques to ageism. “People really did not want the girls to change” in AJLT, Rogers says. “They want to keep them in this time capsule, where Carrie’s at the gay club with the bandana around her arm and a see-through tank on.” Now in her 50s, some might think it’s time for Carrie to give up the wacky accessories and give Chico’s a try. But viewers’ sudden heel-turn might stem from deeper factors as well.

A lesson in 'aesthetics'

By all accounts, Carrie’s specific approach to dressing herself should be a huge hit right now. "Loud luxury" is “in” and has been for years. Think: fluffy furs, bold animal prints, conspicuous logos and clothing in rich shades of red and emerald green. Productions like The White Lotus and Another Simple Favor have flaunted an ostentatious style, and as the Cut notes, artists like Chappell Roan and Doechii have also embraced (and subverted) the "boom boom" aesthetic of the ’80s with playful power suits.

That’s not the only Carrie-coded trend that’s surging right now, either. There’s also fashion maximalism, which, like loud luxury, often thrives during times of economic uncertainty. On runways and on TikTok, people are going all in on high-concept outfits, playful accessories and lots and lots of layers.

Carrie and her hybrid wardrobe are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to SATC’s fashion influence. Consider also younger generations’ dedication to curating hyper-specific “aesthetics” as a way to wordlessly introduce themselves to the world.

What was Carrie’s BFF Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) if not the original “office siren” in a power suit? Meanwhile, Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) had the “old money aesthetic” on lock in pearls and twin sets, and the brash, sexy Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) was basically the "boom boom" queen, always wearing her wealth and power on her immaculately tailored sleeve.

When it came to personal style, Rogers says each of the four main characters’ “lanes” was clearly defined and easy to articulate. SATC costume designer Patricia Field often described the show as “the first moving fashion magazine,” Rogers says, with Carrie as its cover girl. With that in mind, it’s even easier to understand why the core four each have such distinct wardrobes.

“We dressed them, in the beginning and now, a little more heightened than normal-life reality,” Rogers says, “and I think that has a lot to do with curating a look by an aesthetic.”

Decades after the original show’s release, Krylova can draw a direct line from its approach to style to the shopping habits of younger generations today. The show “showed us that style wasn’t just about looking good; it was about telling the world who you are without saying a word,” she explains.

Each generation has taken slightly different lessons from that ethos.

“Generation Z, for example, fully embraces the show’s fearless experimentation,” Krylova says. “They’re not afraid to color clash, mix high fashion with second-hand finds and wear something purely for the drama, even if it breaks all the so-called ‘fashion rules.’” Meanwhile, millennials “approach the show’s influence from a more lifestyle-focused perspective. They deeply connect with the emotional undertones behind each character’s wardrobe choices. For them, fashion isn’t just about being seen; it’s about being understood.”

Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén, a research fellow at the USC School of Cinematic Arts who has published books and articles about fashion, media and communication, explains to Yahoo that film and TV have shaped consumers’ understanding of fashion for more than a century. For example, the experimental films that preceded the silent era often showcased Parisian fashions, exposing American women who could never attend a runway show to the trends of the time. The fashion tie-ins to films of the 1920s and ’30s foreshadowed the product placement deals to come, and American television, in particular, stemmed directly from the advertising industry — which made it the perfect vehicle to inform consumer choices.

The 1980s were a formative time, Castaldo Lundén says, as costume departments partnered with department stores to not only sell certain dresses seen on shows like Dynasty to the middle class, but also to sell patterns for those ensembles to audiences who could not afford the ready-made garments. Years later, Sex and the City perfected the art form with prolific product placement both in the original series and subsequent films — making itself essentially synonymous with brands like Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik.

“They are not only selling the fashions in the show,” Castaldo Lundén says. “They are selling the idea that womanhood comes through the out-of-control consumption of fashion.”

Devout fans might see SATC’s influence a little differently.

“Television has always had a profound impact on how viewers see fashion because it doesn’t just show clothes, it tells stories through them,” Krylova says. “Unlike fashion shows or magazine editorials, which often feel unattainable, television brings fashion into real-life narratives. Viewers don’t just admire what their favorite characters wear; they emotionally connect with them.”

People’s favorite shows don’t just influence the clothes people want to wear, according to Krylova; they also shape why they want to wear them. “And that’s where the real power lies — in showing viewers that fashion isn’t just about trends; it’s about telling your own story through the choices you make every day,” she says.

And Just Like That… costume designer Danny Santiago, who also worked on the two SATC movies, noticed that a lot of younger audiences who’ve newly discovered the show find inspiration in its ’90s and Y2K fashions.

“They want to have that sort of aesthetic to them,” he says, “so they do seek that type of look out — the certain type of handbags and the way that the skirts are falling, and the crop tops and all that sort of stuff, layering … I see it on Instagram all the time,” he tells Yahoo Entertainment.

In that sense, we could call Carrie Bradshaw our first fashion influencer. So why are self-appointed style critics on social media hating on her gonzo outfits?

'A certain age'

The simple answer is that many people hold an antiquated, narrow-minded view of how “women of a certain age” should dress and behave. Rogers and Santiago certainly heard more than their fair share of these opinions in the lead-up to the series premiere of And Just Like That … in 2021.

“We got so many questions about, ‘What are you gonna do with them? They’re at a certain age,’” Rogers recalls. “I am at that certain age … and I was like, ‘I don't know why we would dress them like they'd had lobotomies.’”

Santiago agrees that the idea that older women should abandon their personal styles is “old-fashioned.” Maybe women felt this way 30 years ago, he posits — “like they needed to become something else, in a way of maturing as who they are in their lives. But I feel that [idea] doesn't exist anymore.”

But to some fans, Carrie’s wardrobe has slowly crept away from its original genius. While Krylova believes that the writer’s personal style evolved beautifully in the original series, subsequent appearances of the character in film and on AJLT are a different story. In those productions, she says, “Carrie’s style gradually wore itself out. It became less and less realistic and more and more theatrical, eventually turning into something completely unsupportable.”

The way Krylova sees it, she and other fans began shying away because Carrie’s ’fits “had become too theatrical and out of touch with reality.” Nevertheless, she admires the way that Carrie “continues to challenge the outdated notion that women should remain invisible, modest or reserved as they grow older.”

Love them or hate them, Krylova says Carrie’s new outfits have “sparked conversations about women’s freedom and the right to dress however they want at any age. And in that sense, Carrie’s fashion still does exactly what it was always meant to do — provoke, break boundaries and, most importantly, remind us that self-expression has no age limit.”

There might also be a third reason that Carrie’s wardrobe is not playing quite as well with its target audience.

In the original series, Carrie’s unique fashions amplified her position as an outsider — which made her more relatable to an audience that, for the most part, would also have felt out of place among New York’s high society. Now, she’s as wealthy as anyone else, with the palatial Gramercy Park townhouse to prove it. Within that context, her expensive, enviable wardrobe could feel like an expression of a social standing that viewers will never achieve.

In the original series, Carrie’s high-low wardrobe mirrored the way she stood with one foot in each of two worlds. On one hand, her spending was the stuff of fantasy.

“It wouldn't be possible to acquire that closet — even in terrible debt — without going bankrupt,” Castaldo Lundén says.

At the same time, she says Carrie’s wardrobe echoes a concept that first emerged in the 1800s: Those from outside the aristocracy often adopt wardrobes that mimic that class in the hopes of joining it. Men would do so in order to do more business with old money, while women did it in order to marry rich. Just look at who Carrie married.

By achieving her ultimate fantasy with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), Carrie completed her Cinderella story — the one that made viewers fall in love with her in the first place. That might have fundamentally shifted the way audiences relate to her, clothes and all.

The good news? Carrie has never dressed for anyone but herself. Rogers and Santiago argue she wouldn’t give anyone’s wardrobe criticisms a second thought.

“If real-life Carrie was walking through the park and people were commenting on her hat like they comment on Instagram, I think she’d ignore it,” Rogers says.

“She’d ignore it,” Santiago agrees. “Totally.”