Although the last episode of Sex and the City aired in 2004, its stylish legacy still, well, carries on. Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, nearly played second fiddle to her vast collection of designer shoes throughout the show: she was robbed of her favorite pair of Manolo Blahniks and even created a cheeky registry to have her married friends gift her some designer pumps. Now, the SJP Collection designer is revealing one regret about Bradshaw’s footwear in the November 17 issue of Net-a-Porter’s The Edit.
“I wish I had known to take more pictures,” she said. “I should have photographed every fitting of Sex and the City; every shoe I ever tried on anywhere in the world, ever! I should have shot those experiences, but I didn’t want to intrude on it or ask, ‘Do you mind if I take your picture?’ Or, ‘Do you mind if I document this?’ Oh, I should have taken more pictures.”
FYI, Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw character was known for her quirky outfits and her love for expensive high heels. In fact, during the firth season when Bradshaw almost lost her apartment, she had a startling revelation: “I’ve spent $40,000 on shoes and I have no place to live? I will literally be the old woman who lived in her shoes!”
But Bradshaw’s obsession isn’t why Parker chose to launch her own line of shoes. “I started SJP by Sarah Jessica Parker because this conversation about me doing a shoe line kept circling round and round,” she revealed. Ultimately, she ended up collaborating with George Malkemus III, the CEO of Manolo Blahnik. Perhaps working with Malkemus helped her learn the age-old lesson of quality over quantity.
“I would love to be able to offer a woman a $69 pair of shoes, but those are never going to last her,” she continued. “The heels are going to break, and they’re going to be made under conditions that I would feel really lousy about. How could I ask anybody for their hard-earned dollars, even $69, if they would have to replace the shoes in two months anyway? So George said we are going to make our shoes in Italy, the way shoes should be made. We are going to go to Tuscany, to fourth- and fifth-generation shoemakers, and we’re going to find a way to make a shoe for $395. Now, that isn’t accessible for a lot of people, that’s out of touch, but I couldn’t give them a $69 shoe that would break.”
