The Style Arbiter: How my life paralleled ‘Sex and the City’

Like most women I know, I’m pretty giddy about Sex and the City: The Movie, which opens today.

I’m looking forward to getting up-to-date on the complicated love lives of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte, whose romantic exploits were the lifelines of the original HBO series that thrilled our lives from 1998 to 2004.

I’m also keen to find out how Manhattan has changed over the last four years from the rather lofty perspectives of the main characters — all of them New York insider-types in their own right.

And, of course, I’m totally dying to see what kind of fabulous outfits they’re gonna wear, courtesy of costume designer extraordinaire Patricia Field.

I lived in New York City from 1995 to 2004, which means that the New York I called my own during the late ‘90s and early ‘00s was the same New York that millions of the show’s fans came to know via what amounted to the visual diary of Carrie Bradshaw — actress Sarah Jessica Parker’s perky doppelganger and the show’s deeply flawed (but impeccably accessorized) heroine.

In many ways, it was as if Carrie and Co. were performing scenes from the daily lives of my single gal pals and I in brilliant Technicolor, every Sunday at 9 p.m.

Of course, not everything translated. Our apartments may have been as small and simple as Carrie’s, but they rarely saw as much action. No one I knew dated as much as the women of SATC; we were too busy working our butts off, trying to keep our heads above water and make a few ripples when we could, something you rarely saw our Sex-y television avatars doing.

But my little Manhattan universe did mange to overlap with that of the SATC dames in many other ways, both figurative and literal. To wit: the last episode aired the week I left New York for Nashville.

Although Carrie’s real-life alter ego, Candace Bushnell, wrote the column that the series and movie are based on for the New York Observer, a brilliantly snarky weekly newspaper beloved by the City’s media elite, in the series, Our Lady of the Incredible Shoe Collection is employed by a tabloid rag not unlike the New York Post, where I was fashion editor during the height of SATC mania.

Part of my job was to know the who-what-where-when of NYC’s power players (the City’s best-dressed folks, natch), so if I wasn’t quite living it myself I was at least privy to the lifestyle that the SATC writers were bringing to life on the small screen.

On the show, they — the characters as well as the actresses who played them — drank where we drank (Moomba in the Nineties, Bungalow 8 in the Aughties), ate where we ate (basically, any joint that was doing a free media tasting or where we knew the owner), and shopped where we shopped (sample sales, teensy downtown boutiques, and the Big B’s: Barneys, Bergdorf and sometimes Bloomies).

Sometimes fiction and reality blurred, like when the show would film on my Chelsea street, home to a trendy club featured prominently one season. (I’ll never forget being woken up at 6 a.m. one morning to the sound of “Carrie to set! Carrie to set!” blasting over a megaphone on the street below, which had been turned into a mini village of trailers and craft service tents in the dark of the night.)

Circa SATC, it was a common cocktail party game among women everywhere — New York included — to figure out which of the four female archetypes they resembled most. Breaking them down by their fashion proclivities, your choices were: newspaper columnist Carrie, the wear-anything-once trendoid; PR exec Samantha, the unabashed sexpot; liberal attorney Miranda, the Earth Mother with an edge; and art dealer-turned-kept woman Charlotte, the ironed and buttoned-up WASP princess.

With my collection of colorful flea market dresses, expanding repertoire of Blahniks, Pradas and Louboutins (most scored at sample sales and at Barneys or Bergdorf on clearance), and outré accessories (I once wore a ‘50s-era Elvis fan club pin I scored from a lower East Side street vendor on every outfit for an entire summer), I was very obviously a Carrie.

Hell, I even cut off my lower-back length hair into a short, wavy bob, inspired by her Season Four crop back in 2002.

Basically, like Carrie, I love to live large via my closet. I’m willing to spend money on unique designer pieces and am more than happy to ignore Big Fashion No-No’s. (That said, I still cringe a little when I remember the elevator ride I took with a bemused Post publisher Lachlan Murdoch, when I explained to him my intention to “liberate” sequins from being relegated to eveningwear after he commented on a bling-ed out thrift store skirt I wore to work one day.)

Early reports from SATC: The Movie are that Carrie’s closet has come a long way since its days of clingy bias dresses and short shorts, crazy thematic ensembles (Heidi, anyone?) and massive floral accoutrement.

Our heroine has moved into a higher tax bracket since her television days; she dresses with a bit more sophistication. She still suffers the occasional sartorial tragedy, however — once a rule breaker, always a rule breaker.

Now that I live in Nashville, far away from the bright lights of the big city (and, alas, the soft white lighting on the designer floor at Barneys), my life doesn’t have the superficial parallels to Carrie’s that it once did. However, I still identify with her maverick spirit when it comes to getting dressed: I love it when my outfits warrant a second look from strangers and totally adore the thrill of a brilliant new pair of shoes.

Guess you can take the girl out of the city, but you can’t take the Sex & the City out of the girl.

The Style Arbiter appears Fridays in The City Paper. You can e-mail her at lcallaway@nashvillecitypaper.com or leave a comment on her blog: http://style.nashvillecityblogs.com

The ‘Sex’-iest stores in Nashville

At first glance, the most Nashville of the four “Sex and the City” archetypes is conservative Charlotte, with her penchant for pearls, pastel sundresses and Louis Vuitton Speedy bags.

But I happen to think we’ve got plenty of stores stocking what Carrie would wear, and, for that matter, Samantha and Miranda as well.

H. Audrey

The Hill Center

4027 Hillsboro Pike

760-5701

Two words: Alexander McQueen. OK, a few more: Rick Owens, Mayle, Helmut Lang. All these lines have valuable real estate in Carrie’s closet. It’s the closest thing Nashville has to Barneys.

UAL

2918 West End Ave.

340-9999

Here, you’ll find designer clothes and accessories from Lanvin, Balenciaga, Commes Des Garcons, Christian Dior, Marni and their high-end ilk, all at 70 to 90 percent off retail. You can buy Cosmos for the house with the money you save.

Jamie

4317 Harding Road

292-4188

Thanks to a mix that includes traditionalists Oscar de la Renta, Carolina Herrera and Valentino, as well as trendier wares from Dries Van Noten, Stella McCartney and Vera Wang, both Charlotte and Carrie types will be at home here.

Gus Meyer

The Mall at Green Hills

2113 Green Hills Village

383-4771

This Nashville mainstay stocks lots of the designers utilized by the SATC costume department over the series’ run. Look for classics from Michael Kors and Burberry, as well as younger brands like Nanette Lepore.

Fire Finch

1818 21st Ave. S.

385-5930

305 Church St.

942-5271

Carrie’s passion for standout accessories and fabulous headwear (including feathers) would be met here with ease. Plus, the Hillsboro Village flagship now has a downtown satellite — and everyone knows Sex-y girls love anything to do with downtown living.

Target

26 White Bridge Road

352-8461

Mixing high- and low-end pieces is the way to dress today. And no store gets the latter as well as Tarjay, where elite design companies like Proenza Schouler and Subversive Jewelry are creating capsule collections that are changing the way fashion lovers look at big-box discounters.

Via Runway

Spaces

6000 Highway 100

353-9988

Stark white and minimally (but fabulously) stocked, this Belle Meade boutique could easily be in New York, not surprisingly since that’s where its owner is based. Look for Chloe, Celine and Viktor & Rolf, as well as Nash’s only stock of Marc Jacobs clothing.

Savant Vintage

2302 12th Ave. S.

385-0856

The girls of SATC are always sporting glam vintage pieces. And there’s no shortage of the long, “Stepford Wife”-esque hostess dresses and retro evening gowns that they favored in the series in this 12South boutique.

— Libby Callaway