When Michael Patrick King started writing Sex and the City 2, the economy had just made itself a new home in the sewers. He knew the country was hurting and experiencing new kinds of money woes. But instead of contemplating how he could tone down the sequel’s extravagance to reflect the uncomfortable financial pressure of many Americans, he ultimately decided against it and shelled out $10 million for what the girls would wear. (He must have really not wanted to see them naked!)
There’s one scene in particular, where Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha are doing karaoke in Abu Dhabi, and two of the outfits (and their prices) are described as follows: Carrie wears $4,000 embellished Blonds jeans under a $47,190 silver and gold Chanel lamé dress (that’s over $50,000 right there — and somebody’s freshman year at an Ivy) and Samantha wears a $5,000 spiked blazer. In other scenes, Charlotte makes cupcakes in a Valentino blouse and Miranda (probably goes to work as a lawyer) in a Roland Mouret dress so expensive that you or I wouldn’t even wear it to sleep.
All this means the women will be impeccably dressed, courtesy of the series and movie’s stylist (and otherwise BIG SPENDER), Patricia Field. However, after we salaried people endure some-two hours of looking at beautiful clothes we do not (nor will ever) have the pleasure of owning, we’re going to feel very small and very underfunded. This in mind, it’s hard to imagine how Michael Patrick King would write the sequel and feel comfortable pummeling his audience with gaudy cuffs and silk iridescent overlays at a time in history when everyone (even the actors) are feeling financially vulnerable. But he found a reason and gave himself the green light for spending. He said, “I thought Hollywood should take people on a big vacation that maybe they couldn’t afford themselves. I wanted to make it a big, extravagant vacation.” But again, this is risky, because who wants to see Sarah Jessica Parker sipping Dom Perignon on a first-class flight to Abu Dhabi, when the last vacation they took involved dumping a truck of sand in their basement? (I do, I really do. And I will. Probably a few times. But it’s going to be hard.)
Source: NYMag
