And just like that...sex is back in the city and everyone’s favourite fashionable small screen starlet, Carrie Bradshaw, is back with a bang (quite literally, the first scene is a montage of her and the other characters each having sex).
Sure, the SATC spinoff has undergone its fair share of criticism - it’s sexless, it’s cringe, it’s lacking Samantha, it’s too woke yet somehow not “current” at all - but the first series was continually saved by fans’ commitment to the source material, as well as And Just Like That’s ability to reference it.
AJLT understands the importance of a self referential moment better than anyone, save for perhaps Nicole Kidman at this year’s Met Gala wearing the same dress she wore in a Chanel No 5 commercial.
In the first series alone we had Carrie referring to her shoes as lovers, references to sweaters occupying stoves and the return of meaningful Manolos, as well as cameos from niche characters of days gone by, like Susan Sharon and Bitsy Von Muffling.
But the best recycled moment yet has come from And Just Like That’s season two premiere, in what feels almost like a respectful nod from the showrunners, who clearly know what saved them the first time around and led to the series’ renewal.
For those who’ve yet to watch it (warning: spoilers ahead), in And Just Like That’s first episode of season two we learn that the Met Gala is on (yes, the Met Gala exists in the Sex and the Cityverse, all is right in the world) and all the girls are invited. The theme is “veiled beauty”, so Lisa Todd Wexley aka LTW is wearing a massive Valentino feather headdress and red gown, Charlotte is wearing some kind of BDSM meets Ascot get-up with a top hat attached to it and Seema is as on-trend as ever in a champagne colour hooded gown, a la Grace Jones in Alaïa in 1985.
Carrie, however, is having seamstress problems. Her first seamstress gets sick and then the second comes down with the same flu (which they refer to as the Seamstress Flu), meaning that she can’t wear her original Met Gala dress as planned - which is great, because it looks like a pair of cheap curtains from Dunelm.
In a last minute pinch, Carrie decides to excavate her old Vivienne Westwood wedding dress from the day she was meant to marry Big but he gilted her (god this guy really sucked sometimes didn’t he? RIP though, I guess) and finally give it the outing it deserves. As she descends down the steps of her brownstone, she delivers the closing line: “And just like that, I repurposed my pain.”
Not only is it an exquisite piece of fashion to see on screen once again, it’s also an emotive nod to the late designer, who died in December 2022. It’s entirely probably that this wasn’t even intentional, given that SJP was spotted swanning around New York with her J.W. Anderson pigeon clutch (which appears in season two episode two, back in October, before Westwood had even passed), but either way, it’s appreciated.
It’s also completely fitting with the red carpet behaviour of today - second-hand is here to stay, baby! - and a lot more realistic than if it had been done years earlier, in one of the movie sequels, for instance.
So we’ve got: sustainability? Check. Self reference? Check. Wearing the most respected, relevant designer in tribute to her decades of work following her death? Check. Making us shed a little chic tear? Check.
Carrie, as per usual, is on point. Let’s call it jilted glamour.
