IT SEEMS LIKE SEX AND THE CITY DEBUTED ONLY YESTERDAY…
The revolutionary Sex and the City tackled topics ranging from fashion to sex to dating and parenting in a frank and heartfelt way, setting the tone for the golden age of television that followed. Let’s take a trip down memory lane with Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, Charlotte – and the pearls of their wisdom.
THE ICONIC OUTFITS
“I have this little substance abuse problem… Expensive footwear.” – Carrie
Carrie Bradshaw, living out her unconditional love affair with fashion, is the heart and soul of Sex and the City. She has inspired thousands of fans across the world for 20 years with her unique style, created from a mish-mash of vintage models and designer pieces. Carrie even managed to bring back trends that had long been left in the past. From Ray-Ban Wayfarers to the iconic 1990s Gucci belt bag, and even transparent shoes in season one.
THE UNCONDITIONAL FRIENDSHIP
“We made a deal ages ago, men, babies, it doesn’t matter. We’re soul mates.” – Samantha
Before Sex and the City, we had never seen a group of friends as eclectic onscreen. Carrie is a sex columnist, Charlotte York is a naïve gallery owner in search of love, Miranda Hobbes is an independently minded and cynical lawyer, and Samantha Jones is a PR executive and man-eater. In Sex and the City, life revolves around eating in restaurants, drinking Cosmopolitans, shopping, and discussing the latest mystery about the male species. Who needs “the one” when you can have four great friends instead? As Charlotte says in season six “maybe our girlfriends are our soulmates and guys are just people to have fun with.”
LOVE
“Men in their forties are like the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle: tricky, complicated, and you’re never really sure you got the right answer.” – Carrie
Sex and City is also a love story. A love story between Carrie and Mr. Big. From the first to the last season, their romantic idyll becomes the central subject of the New Yorker’s column and books. Their tumultuous love story brings up questions on every possible theme surrounding relationships, from love at first sight to cheating, sex, commitment problems, marriage, and divorce. At the end of the series, the four friends learn that you can find love on a street corner, when you least expect it, that it is much stronger than the ideal image they have in their heads, and that sex has no age limit. But the most important thing that we learned about love was that it doesn’t matter if you are 20, 30 or 40, whether you are in a couple or single, as long as you love yourself.
GIRL POWER
“I’m just going to say the thing you’re not supposed to say. I love you, but I love me more.” – Samantha
In 1998, HBO released a new show about a group of hilarious friends who talked openly about sex. Nothing unusual here. Except that this group of hilarious friends was all-female, making Sex and the City one of the most revolutionary shows. The working woman, a character that hadn’t been delved into before, was put front and center. A bold move for the time. A follow-on from the 1980s female executives, the four main characters are all working girls, with high-flying jobs. Carrie is a journalist, Miranda is a lawyer, Samantha works in PR and Charlotte owns an art gallery. Forward-thinking for a show made in the 1990s.
LET’S TALK SEX BABY
“Men who are too good looking are never good in bed because they never had to be” – Carrie
Sex and the City’s uninhibited sense of humor made it one of the most revolutionary series and cemented its cult status. Its four main characters talked openly, and without euphemism, about their experiences with men, both good and bad. Thus proving that women have sex lives too and that they don’t mind shouting about it. From threesomes to orgasms and vibrators, nothing was off-limits, earning Sex and the City its status as a veritable sex manual for several generations in only a few years.
