Like Carrie Bradshaw and her eclectic wardrobe, HBO had options when deciding on the perfect title sequence for Sex and the City. The beloved show, which premiered in 1998 and ended in 2004, had an alternate opening that didn’t feature a tutu-clad Sarah Jessica Parker getting splashed by a bus. Check it out above!
The newly unearthed clip, which was obtained by Entertainment Weekly and published on Thursday, March 30, shows SJP’s Carrie — sporting a baby-blue sheath dress — wandering down Manhattan’s swanky Fifth Avenue, but stopping when she notices an ad for her sex column in the New York Star plastered across a city bus (presumably the same one responsible for ruining her tutu in the original version). The style-minded writer then spins around and continues on her walk with a huge smile on her face.
“There were two wardrobes. One was the tutu, and we did one pass where Sarah Jessica was wearing a blue dress and didn’t get splashed; instead, she trips when she sees the ad,” series creator Darren Star told EW of filming in March 1998 near the iconic Plaza Hotel. “In my mind, it was a nod to The Dick Van Dyke Show, but we didn’t use it. It’s in the archives.”
Patricia Field, who designed the costumes for SATC, told EW that Star, 55, wasn’t too keen on the idea of Carrie rocking a tutu as streetwear. “It was very difficult for the producers to understand the tutu,” Field, 75, said of the tulle skirt, which was found in a $5 bin on a showroom floor. “Sarah Jessica and I were fighting for it, and Darren said, ‘OK, but I want other outfits as possibilities.’”
Nearly two decades after his show made an indelible impact on pop culture, Star can’t imagine Carrie without her tutu. “It was such a brilliant choice,” he told EW of the ballerina-inspired getup, “Because, in a way, Carrie’s dancing through her life in New York.”
