The secret’s out! Sarah Jessica Parker has been revealed as the top-secret designer of many of the heels in And Just Like That, particularly those from the faux-vintage label entitled Duchessa Gardini.
The actress, 56, shared the news in a Vogue interview published on Thursday, February 3, in line with And Just Like That’s season finale. Ahead of the revival, Parker teamed up with costume designer Molly Rogers and her late business partner George Malkemus to create the faux footwear label under the SJP brand, which the duo founded in 2014.
SJP was hesitant about showcasing her designs on the show at first. “There is no SJP collection in Carrie’s world; I don’t exist there because that would be too weird for me,” she told the outlet.
“I didn’t want it to look like I was exploiting a business opportunity and HBO either, but as we were approaching my first fitting in May of last year, it became clear that there were still some holes Molly and David wanted to fill in terms of the accessories.”
So the pair got to work dreaming up a faux brand, making sure it aligned with SJP by Sarah Jessica Parker’s practices. “George and I decided to build the shoes that Molly and David needed, but not to use our names,” she continued.
The vision behind it? “We were thinking of an old Italian house. Our shoes are all handmade in Italy by third- and fourth-generation shoemakers, so it’s possible that you could have had a brand like this.”
She continued: “If it were any other show, that might not matter, but here the provenance of a shoe matters. People are curious whether the shoes are from the turn of the century or fresh off the runways of Paris.”
Amazingly, the truth remained a secret up until the very end. “It’s incredible that mysteries still exist even when you have social media and everything is looked at under a microscope,” said Rogers. “Plus, it was great to have access to a shoe that had people saying, ‘what is that?’”
Perhaps the best news of all is that the brand is launching a Duchessa Gardini Capsule Collection, which will be available this March. Select designs are already available for preorder and prices range from $415 to $595. Join the waitlist here and keep scrolling to see the pieces you can add to cart (so long as they don’t sell out in the blink of an eye).