Violet Velvet Mittens: Parker Vs. Parker

We all know what happened to Sex and The City: it became a movie, & then it became a possible movie sequel, & now it’s just fashion folklore from those oft remembered days gone by. Whatever happened to Patricia Field? Zeitgeist, Artiste, Designer; she went to M&S. SATC became a hit through its more hilarious than accurate, but all the same still touching rendering of career women through their thirties, seeking love, sex & money. We all know what really made it stick in the collective was the fashion, the colours, the designers. Samantha’s Fendi baguettes (both authentic & fake), Carrie’s Louboutin’s, Charlotte’s preppyness & Miranda’s suits: they called out to us. & now they’re gone.

Where SATC paved the way, other US drama series are taking smaller, subtler steps. Mad Men, set in the Sixties in a dependably sexist advertising industry where women are valued more for their likeness to a pin-up Coca-Cola ad than a technical education, throws out inspiring ensembles for both men & women. Costume designer for the show, Janie Bryant explains on Black Book that she wanted to create “a sleek style...masculine...that’s also about wealth & personal grooming” for the men, with a pithy “cupcake...hourglass...a little bit prim” look for the ladies. Fashion in the 1960s really came into its own as it began to breach the gap between the conservative white-picket-fence Fifties and the Roxy Music/Studio 54 Seventies. Hair was coiffed & curled while bodices were loosened, skirts began to creep towards the knee whilst twinsets still reigned supreme.

From Sarah Jessica Parker to Mary-Louise Parker, those of the double barrelled names. The unlikely sleeper hit based around a kooky suburban drug-dealing widow, Showtime’s Weeds really hit it off with the young, urbanite professional crowd. Where Mary-Louise Parker, in arguably her best-suited role yet, began with pedal pushers, wife-beaters and static hair, she ended the recent series with a whole array of car-crash-causing bondage stilettos and Roberto Cavalli slip dresses to die for - which, trust me, after coming dangerously close to death several times throughout , she probably doesn’t want to do -

Keep an eye on the small screen, kids.

Behind every glamorous & adoring housewife is a cigaretted man in a sharp suit: