In case you missed it, Sarah Jessica Parker is Vogue’s new digital cover star, just in time for the second-season premiere of And Just Like That…. In her new Vogue video, Parker pays homage to her stylish onscreen character Carrie Bradshaw by sporting some of her signature pieces, including Fendi Baguettes and Dior shoes. But there’s one particular dress that holds an interesting backstory: Parker wears a newspaper-print dress, but not the one from Dior’s John Galliano era. Rather it’s a new interpretation created by the up-and-coming designer Miss Claire Sullivan.
The new dress was a collaboration between Sullivan, Vogue stylist Jorden Bickham, and director Bardia Zeinali. The trio felt the video needed a stylish nod to the famous newspaper dress that Carrie wears in the original Sex and the City series’s third season, episode 17. (She rewears it in the second film too.) “They wanted to see my spin on it,” says Sullivan. As a major Carrie Bradshaw fan, the designer was instantly in. “We wanted to dramatize it,” says the designer, “so the idea was to use her Vogue covers and articles.”
To begin the design process, Sullivan poured over Parker’s seven American Vogue cover images and cover stories and then worked with graphic designer Jakob Weinzettel to compile them into a custom-printed silk-crepe fabric. “We wanted it to feel close to newspaper,” she says. While the duo didn’t use every single cover, they did make sure to use their favorites. Sullivan’s personal highlight is the one from February 2002. “She has this thin little black tank top on,” says Sullivan, who also enjoyed reading these cover stories. “It was funny—while I was sewing, I was reading them. I was literally at the sewing machine at four in the morning, reading these articles.”
Once the fabric was printed and ready to design with, Sullivan got to work draping it in an artful way—layering it over a built-in corset to add some shape to the overall look. “My process is very draping heavy,” says Sullivan. “It was important for me to map out the fabric and think about how the print was going to read.” Once the dress was built, Sullivan added vibrant dashes of black tulle for texture. “Jorden and I landed on a tulle-shrug moment,” says Sullivan. “It’s actually inspired by an old Comme des Garçons coat Carrie wears in the show.”
While Sullivan wasn’t on set when Parker put on the finished newspaper dress, she later heard from the star about her special, one-of-a-kind recreation. “She was very moved and touched by it, to see all those memories come together,” says Sullivan. The designer says making the couture creation is one of her favorite fashion assignments to date. “It was a surreal experience,” she says. “It’s one of my favorite things that I’ve ever made, for sure.”
