Meet Patricia Field, the stylist behind Sex and the City fashion icon Carrie Bradshaw’s classic looks
As the Adelaide Film Festival kicks off, we chat to New York City’s Patricia Field, who found fame as Sex and the City’s stylist and is now starring in a doco about her fashionable life.
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Our national treasure, the late Olivia Newton John, is an inspiration to legendary fashionista Patricia Field, of Sex and the City fame.
Arguably the most cutting-edge octogenarian on the planet, native New Yorker Field is speaking exclusively to The Advertiser.
MAKING MOVIES
We are talking to her in the lead up to the Adelaide Film Festival, which is screening the documentary Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Field.
She says making the doco was a “very creative experience”.
“I had a lot of, you know, freedom to express myself,” says Field, adding the movie starts with her jumping into a pool, but not giving away much more. Obviously, we need to go see it for ourselves.
DRESSED TO THRILL
Like 102-year-old style queen Iris Apfel, Field loves dopamine dressing, or as she says “happy clothes”, that make the wearer feel good.
She is best known as the costume designer for groundbreaking television series Sex and the City, which ran from 1998 until 2004 and forever changed the way women dressed.
It was largely thanks to Sarah Jessica Parker’s central character Carrie Bradshaw, who had a seemingly inimitable quirky fashion sense. But copy it we did. For example, by donning studded belts with floral frocks, or stepping up our shoe collection to include Carrie’s fave brand Manolo Blahnik.
EXPRESS YOURSELF
But long before SATC, Field – who was also in charge of the wardrobe for 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada and, more recently, the series Emily in Paris – had a passion for out-there fashion.
“When I was young my mom would take me to the department stores, get me cashmere sweaters, different luxury things, and I was always like, ‘Oh Mom, cashmere sweaters again!,” recalls Field, going on to talk about her desire, no, make that, need to not fit in: “In my younger days, (dressing) was, I would say, a way of expressing myself and it just continued on in my life.”
GOOD SPORT
Before Field became a stylist, costume and fashion designer – you may recall she released a SATC-inspired line sold in Myer some years back – she ran retail stores in NYC which broke the mold.
“I developed into a pattern of going to different trade shows, but not necessarily fashion trade shows,” she says. “For example. I used to enjoy sporting goods. I bought them with the idea of presenting them as fashion. It was just a new twist on fashion.”
LEGGINGS AS PANTS
Thanks to this philosophy, Field is credited with creating the divisive “leggings as pants” trend. She was inspired by Olivia Newton John in the climactic moment of Grease, after her character Sandy has undergone what can only be described as an extreme makeover, swapping fifties frocks and twin-sets for her “Tell me about it, stud” outfit.
“She had these tight pants on,” says Field, referring to the black, shiny painted-on jeans ONJ wore with an equally sexy off-the-shoulder top, chunky red mules and brassy gold hoop earrings.
Field continues: “I was very inspired by that because, at the time, that wasn’t really the fashion and it was one of my cues.”
With clientele including punk rocker Patti Smith and “one of the Kennedys”, Field says her 1970s boutique, which over time was named after her, “had an attitude”.
SEX AND THE STYLIST
As for how Field ended up working on SATC, it turns out it was at Sarah Jessica Parker’s invitation.
“She was actually the one that brought me into Sex and the City,” says Field, who did the costumes for 1995 rom-com Miami Rhapsody, starring Antonio Banderas, Mia Farrow and Gil Bellows, as well as SJP, with whom she became friends.
TUTU MUCH
And in the same way that ONJ led to Field’s love for leggings as pants, SJP inspired her to put Carrie Bradshaw in a pale pink tulle skirt for the intro of each SATC episode. It moved the tutu into mainstream fashion.
“I kind of felt strongly that she would appreciate it as she is ballet trained,” says Field, adding: “(It fit) her natural instinct as a dancer, but was also (about) making fashion, and she understood it.”
ON WITH THE SHOW
Field also loved dressing SATC’s Kim Cattrall, who played Samantha Jones, and, like SJP, is a close friend – despite the well-documented rift between the two actresses.
“I have been fortunate in working with, you know, a beautiful collection of actors and actresses,” says Field, before signing off on our call: “My job is to make the actor feel positive.”
Adelaide Film Festival runs October 18 to 29. Happy Clothes is screening at Palace Nova Eastend on Sunday, October 22 at 6pm and Saturday, October 29, at 9pm. Book here.
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