Carrie, the Russian and Oscar

SATC fashion (and I'm excluding the second film here), like many things in life, gets more refined and more beautiful with age. I know that I am most likely preaching to the converted here but after indulging in some SATC viewing over dinner last night I truly came to the conclusion that with a few notable exceptions the styling of the final series was, in my opinion, the best. Admittedly the earlier series feature many iconic outfits (the newspaper print dress etc) but they similarly feature a lot of outright eccentric and unflattering ensembles, mostly worn by Carrie. Pat Field is without a doubt one of the most powerful stylists of the current age having defined the zeitgeist of an entire generation and affected the way hundreds of thousands of women have viewed the way they dress. But no visionary has a seamless and unblemished history- the multiple atrocities of Miranda's wardrobe (raincoats, oversized dungarees and terrible haircuts in the first season), Samantha's jewellery (hello Pat Butcher) and Carrie's oddly layered and not age appropriate choices (crop tops, leggings and bunches for the over 30s??) are testament to this. Luckily by the sixth season each woman has their personal look refined and they look utterly fabulous. It will not be a shock to many that Carrie is my style favourite (personality/character wise she would be my least)- mostly due to the fact that Charlotte, whilst perennially feminine and elegant, is a little too conservative for my tastes; Samantha a little too extravagant and bling and Miranda...much as I admire her tenacity and acerbic wit she definitely lacks (in the series) the fashion flair to appeal to my style aesthetic. In the final series Carrie's style is both feminine and provocative, luxurious and edgy. Whilst she is dating the Russian, during the initial stage of wooing (and I call it wooing merely because in an old fashioned sense he courts her with dinners, poetry and music), Carrie wears a profusion of richly textured maxi dresses and silk slips with mohair and other fur coats/cardigans. Whilst in Paris she wears several skirts and dresses which cinch in at the waist and then flow out in an array of layered netting and tulle, along with some ornately embroidered flapper dresses and several pairs of leather/lace and wool gloves. I love it all. Especially when the outfits are topped off by the return of Carrie's voluminously curled and honey tinted hair.

And of course who can forget the gorgeously bright and girly fuschia pink dress which the Russian got from his friend Oscar (de la Renta)?!?! Despite his age and the cragginess of his face- if he were to read me poetry, take me for horse and carriage rides in the snow, whisk me off to Paris and buy me an Oscar de la Renta gown I would most definitely take him on.