With her flame-thrower hairdo and sassy credits, Patricia Field is pretty fierce for 66. She was the cougar in the "Sex and the City" style closet, after all. And she's, ahem, forthcoming with the press about her polite disagreements with the stars she's dressed. In a recent Q&A with Mirror.co.uk marking the DVD release of "Confessions of a Shopaholic," Field expresses her disdain for Davis' pet A-line skirt, saying it's the one article of clothing she herself wouldn't be caught dead in:
Kristin Davis always wanted to wear A-line skirts as she thought it hid her big behind. She has a fabulous figure – she is completely hour glass, and I would say: ‘Kristin, you have a small waist – show off your round ass!’ She would never show it. I wanted to make her into a Bettie Page in SATC, but all she wanted were A-line skirts and Ralph Lauren clothes.
We're pretty sure the reliably demure Charlotte wouldn't have dressed to show off her rear, but modest girls can have noticeably nice butts too, right? Field's comments raise questions about how much impact stylists really have on movies and TV shows like 'Sex' that are based around the characters' clothes and not much else. Even something as seemingly innocuous as the cut of a skirt can make a difference.
We came to know Charlotte, for instance, by her neat polos and tennis skirts. Would Davis' surrender to Fields' pleas have inspired a mutual respect between a more sexed-up Charlotte and jaw-dropper Samantha where there had been a tension of misunderstanding? Would Charlotte's character have been filled out along with her figure if she'd chosen bigger pockets?
Why should we care about the series anyway, now that the movie is over and the happy endings are forged? Well, for 'Sex''s part, the deals are signed for the sequel and a mid-life crisis is likely for at least one of the characters, Charlotte's being the easiest to write. So it could be that we will see Charlotte as a vamp. And as far as Field is concerned, her power over the style-focused rom-com genre is great, as she's been at the helm of "The Devil Wears Prada" and "Ugly Betty" as stylist.
So if your brain needs some exercise while indulging in the guilty pleasures Field has decorated with her fiery agenda, note the seams, the fit, and the lengths of those skirts. You could find out more why you see the characters the way you do -- and inspect what your own wardrobe is communicating, ever so subtly.
