It’s the tutu you know and love: the iconic pink piece Carrie Bradshaw wears as the opening credits roll on every episode of Sex and the City. The tiered tutu that Sarah Jessica Parker wore as Carrie cost a miniscule $5 in 1997, bought, of course, before it had fame and fanfare surrounding it. The skirt went up for auction recently—and sold for more than 10,000 times its original price.
Sex and the City stylist and costume designer Patricia Field found the tutu—as well as four others identical to it—in a $5 bin while shopping in New York City’s Garment District 27 years ago. Field liked it for the show’s opening credits, because it wasn’t tied to a specific year, like the 1998 Marc Jacobs runway dress that almost made the cut.
“I showed it to Sarah Jessica, and she loved it,” Field said on the skirt’s certificate of authenticity. “She felt the idea, even though some people on the show didn’t get it right away. We ended up shooting three outfit options for the opening, but this was by far the most original concept.”
Julien’s Auctions—which sold the piece—estimated it would sell for between $8,000 to $12,000, but they majorly lowballed its worth to Sex and the City aficionados. The tulle skirt sold after 24 bids for an eye-popping $52,000, a price 10,400 times greater than its original $5 cost.
Field wrote in her 2023 memoir, Pat in the City, that the tutu encapsulated what was special about the hit HBO show. “The tutu-style skirt was whimsical, adventurous, and unexpected—kind of like this show,” she wrote. She also recalled telling the show’s creator Darren Star “If this show’s a hit, the opening will be memorable and stay fresh.”
If you’ll remember, Field bought five tutus in the $5 bin, done so because (as any Sex and the City viewer knows) Carrie gets splashed by a bus in the credits, and they wanted to have more than one tutu on hand. Parker revealed in February 2022 that she still has one of them. “A lot of people claim they have the tutu,” she said. “I think Pat [Field] has one, Michael Patrick [King, who directed and wrote many of the show’s episodes] has one. We just used one…Where is it, who’s got it? I’ve got it.”
Well, now, someone paid $52,000 to join this exclusive tutu-owning club.
By the way, the tutu wasn’t the only article of clothing from the show sold at auction recently. Carrie’s John Galliano for Christian Dior newsprint silk chiffon strapless gown (which she wears in season three’s episode called “Natasha”) also went up for auction, ultimately selling for $11,430.
