Added to your bag
Added to my wishlist

Sign in or create your account

to benefit from exclusive offers and privileges
and take advantage of your loyalty program

0

Your wishlist is empty

Added to my wishlist

NEWS

And Just Like That, Emily In Paris, SATC: When TV Series Change Our Wardrobes

By Marine Poyer | February 14, 2022

Excerpt from Season 2 of Emily in Paris

There can be no doubt: TV series are shaking up the way we dress. Take, for example, Sex and the City. With the advent of the new millennium and its seismic shifts in internet access, social networks, and e-commerce, it's easier than ever to cop the looks of our favorite prime-time heroines — sometimes before the credits roll. But how did this metamorphosis in style occur?

SATC: Before and After

Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?, Funny Face, Ready to Wear ? fashion has always been an object of fascination in the world of cinema. And while the Hollywood anecdotes abound ? Marlene Dietrich once had a stipulation added to her contract that her wardrobe would be signed by Dior, Audrey Hepburn's loyalty to Hubert de Givenchy is the stuff of Hollywood legend, and Brigitte Bardot was dressed by none other than Pierre Balmain for La Mariée était trop belle ? fashion and TV was another story. Patricia Field, costume designer for Sex and the City, recalls how, "[In the beginning], we'd call showrooms and never hear from anyone? in a 2011 interview with The Independent. ?As for some of the tricks I would use,? she says, ?... well, there's a consignment (charity) store in New York, where a lot of the stuff came from. There was a fur coat that Carrie wore all the time that we got for $350, so we got our money's worth.? This kind of lackluster response lasted for a few months, in spite of the first few episodes' runaway success. In fact, it would take several seasons for brands to get the memo and start contacting the studio in order to place their products. Among them? Fendi. In 2012, series star Sarah Jessica Parker fondly reminisced on just how reluctant luxury labels were to lend articles to the show ? all but Fendi, who was more than generous, and whose enduring baguette bag, an it-item to this day, is testimony to the show's influence.

Dior, Vuitton, Chanel, Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo, and Christian Louboutin: the series dropped hit after hit, many of which were only worn once, and name-dropping became second-nature for series protagonist Carrie. When the series ended in 2004 after a six-season run, certain labels found themselves with a new fanbase. Tamara Mellon, co-founder of Jimmy Choo, recalls the phenomenon in her autobiography In My Shoes: ?The script has Carrie Bradshaw running for the Staten Island Ferry when she stumbles and screams out, 'I lost my Choo!' (?) That one mention helped turns into a household name. Suddenly women who'd never heard of us, women who lived in small towns in the American Heartland, thought about us in the same heady company as the other luxury brands being mentioned, brand names like Prada and Gucci and, admittedly, Manolo Blahnik.?

sex and the city

The characters Charlotte, Carrie, Miranda and Samantha in the "Sex and the City" series

Online shopping, though, was still in its infancy, and social networks were even further behind ? Twitter had only just been launched. Fashionistas of the day still counted on magazines to help them decode the ultra-pricey outfits sported by their favorite girls about town. But the seed had been planted, and one thing was for sure: television could be a real vector for brands. From Cashmere Mafia to Lipstick Jungle via Ugly Betty and Gossip Girl, series about it-girls and wannabes were all the rage. Reality television wasn't far behind, with ?The Hills? offering us a look at Lauren Conrad's adventures at Teen Vogue, while its spinoff, ?The City,? follows her friend and coworker Whitney as she cuts her teeth at DVF's New York office. If the uptick in purchases couldn't be immediately registered or even formally identified, fashion had henceforth carved a place for itself on the small screen.

Gossip Girl

XO XO, Gossip girl

Google: Democratizing Style

With new channels of communication came a new dawn for the fashion world. In the beginning of the 2010s, the advent of social networks saw the emergence of a new figure: the influencer. A faster channel than traditional publications and thought to be more objective than the specialized press ? she was free from the sway of advertisers ? the influencer was closer to the average consumer and presented useful content like trend illustrations, outfits of the day, and other fun finds. All of this would begin in the blogosphere before winding up on Instagram. And it wasn't long before the step towards outfit recreation was taken; lest we forget, this was also the golden age of the television series. Having been relegated to the shadows for decades, women on television were powerful, and they were putting even the sharpest of budding stylists to shame.

Chiara Ferragni

Influencer Chiara Ferragni in 2016

Chiara Ferragni

Chiara Ferragni, queen of streetstyle in the 2010s

Olivia Pope's Goyard tote, Gaby Solis' YSL Tributes, and Serena van der Woodsen's Hervé Léger Max Azria dress were all emblematic pieces in themselves, and they were identified by viewers in record time. ?Worn on TV,? in operation since 2012, has identified examples from over 400 shows and has a catalog of over 73,000 looks. And while twenty years ago Carrie Bradshaw's closet was largely composed of luxury pieces, those of today's heroines are more accessible and, really, easier to imitate. But it's no longer just a question of tracking down the latest it-bag. Style has come to the forefront in loads of contemporary series, and between the cute blouse that's worn for thirty seconds on-screen, to the coat from a small ready-to-wear brand that hasn't hit the spotlight yet, identifying the pieces can present a real challenge ? to the point where sources have to be cross-referenced to find the right label. While a few years ago this kind of game had been mastered by savvy viewers and other third parties, today it's brands and stylists themselves who are the first to promote their work on social network or with the specialized press.

Last July, Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago, costume designers for And Just Like That, launched the Instagram account @andjustlikethatcostumes. There they share glimpses from behind the scenes. It's also a great way to guide fans in their quest to identify all the elements of their favorite looks. Better yet, some labels have twigged to the super-power of celebrity endorsement from the stars of everyone's favorite shows, devoting unique campaigns to such collaborations. In 2019, Sarah Jessica Parker graced the screens for Fendi in an ad for her favorite bag ? a perfect opportunity to re-inhabit the role of Carrie Bradshaw, and to remind us that ?It's not a bag, it's a baguette.?

Lockdown: E-Commerce Acceleration

In spite of all this progress, up until just a few years ago there remained one important point of inertia: e-commerce. Launched in the early 2000s, the model of online shopping has today become common practice for the vast majority of labels. But before the pandemic, a number of brands were still betting it all on in-store shopping ? which meant they needed to quickly revise their strategy following the emergence of Covid-19. It was nothing short of a paradigm shift ? in 2020, a MacKinsey report revealed that clients preferred shopping online to shopping in-store, including after the end of lockdown. This new ?trend? led to novel ways of selling. And that wasn't all: having been cancelled or postponed and forced to favor digital methods, fashion shows entered a totally new era. Imaginations ran wild, inspired by parallel mediums like television.

According to Médiamétrie, TV was an important resource for French people during the lockdowns, as much for entertainment as for staying informed. During the first five weeks of the nation-wide lockdown, between March and April 2020, the average television-watching time per person was around an hour and twenty minutes per day. And while broadcast news networks were the big winners, recreational shows weren't far behind. During the first half of the year, Netflix saw its number of subscribers jump by a mere?25 million. All told, it was a massive leap in itself, but it also meant a strong foundation for influencing fashion like never before. From Omar Sy's trainers on Lupin to the Regency getups that colored Bridgerton ? which, by the way, made way for Regencycore, #Cottagecore's big sister ? via Princess Diana's incredible 80s looks on The Crown, lockdown was, for some at least, the perfect moment for a wardrobe makeover. The fashion calendar, always one step ahead of the game, was quick on the uptake ? at the end of 2020, the adventures of Emily Cooper in the City of Lights hit Netflix, scoring 58 million viewers around the world within a month of its premiere. It also signed Patricia Field's return to the small screen, over fifteen years after Sex and the City's final episode.

Sarah Jessica Parker dans And Just Like That

Sarah Jessica Parker in the ?And Just Like That? series

In 2021, HBO Max threw its glove in the ring with And Just Like That. The show brings together the original SATC cast, minus Kim Cattrall, a host of newcomers, and more style than you can shake a Choo at. And even if Carrie's looks have changed with the times ? now she wears vintage and won't be parted with her (organic) cotton tote bag ? fans are still scrambling to know where she copped it all. When the first behind-the-scenes shots from filming leaked, before the series had even aired, a bevy of Instagram accounts got down to figuring out where to score the hottest pieces. A couple gems were the Hourglass bag from Hacker Project from Gucci and Balenciaga; the studded belt by Streets Ahead already seen in the franchise's first film; and the Hangisi heels by Manolo Blahnik. The biggest surprise was perhaps the sequined Fendi Baguette, initially unveiled on episode 17 of season 3, and today living out something of an orchestrated renaissance by the Italian label. It's further proof, if more was needed, that fashion is a game of eternal return. Almost, at least. For its latest season, Emily in Paris innovated still further by placing its sponsors front and center in a totally new way. Instead of having the heroine don the products herself ? an observation over which much ink was spilled following the first season ? now those labels have become the most precious clients of the agency, Savoir, where Emily works.

chopard dans Emily in Paris

Product placement for the Chopard brand in the "Emily in Paris" series

Product placement 2.0, as unexpected as it is creative, and a far cry from the influencer calls-to-action of yore. Emily's customized Rimowa suitcase is a perfect example, portrayed on the show as the design of her friend and (fictional) creator Pierre Cadault. Coveted by viewers and subject to great intrigue on socials, the label ultimately opted not to make the model commercially available. There's no lack of eye-candy here: the Chopard jewels that light up a special soirée hosted on a boat on the Seine, plus a collector's edition of a Vespa scooter, decked in Dior's Oblique pattern and hijacked by Emily for fifteen minutes of folie. Really, it's a lesson in infusing scenes of daily life with opulence, and in a way that speaks to people. Frequently criticized for the incoherence between Emily's supposed salary and the mind-boggling value of her wardrobe, the series makes Emily a spectator herself, utterly hypnotized by the luxuries on offer at her job. A hall of mirrors, and a smart one at that.

Welcome to printemps.com, you are connecting from: UK and your language is set to english.