The sequins start about three blocks away. Mostly on skirts, but also on blazers, belts, bags, hair clips, cowboy boots, and sandals with straps shaped like butterflies. Passersby in black—many wearing face masks due to New York City’s hazardous smog—crane their heads in confusion. Where are these people going?
To one place and one place only: “And Just Like That…It’s Been 25 Years: A Sex and the City Experience.”
This week, Sex and the City, HBO’s landmark show about four single 30-something women in New York City, turned 25. To mark the occasion, Max announced an interactive, immersive installation in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood to celebrate both the show and its spin-off, And Just Like That. Guests, the magenta-streaked website declared, could take pictures in Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment, sip Cosmopolitans, and view some of the show’s most famous outfits, created by costume designer Patricia Field. “Grab your best friend and get ready for a nostalgic, memorable, and fashion-packed experience!” it advertised. The tickets quickly sold out.
Because this Vogue writer couldn’t help but wonder what it would all be like, on Thursday morning I brushed my hair, dabbed on some lip gloss, and headed outside to find out.
Upon my arrival at 477 Broadway, I wait in line for a few minutes, surrounded by the sequins I’d seen blocks earlier, as well as tulle, florals, rhinestones, and a whole lot of hot pink. When I finally reach the front, a cheerful woman with a clipboard checks me in. I’m impressed by her warmth—she’s surely been on her feet all morning, out and about in the city’s polluted air as she wrangled one hell of a line. (I, for one, would be far from chipper.) Inside, several more staffers address me with an eagerness not unlike what you’d encounter at Disney World. And in a way, that’s what this place is: a theme park for adults whose Mickey Mouse is a sex columnist-turned-podcaster.
There’s a replica of the façade of Carrie’s brownstone, where several people are in line to take iPhone photos on the stoop. A newsstand sells Sex and the City merchandise. I see a recreation of Carrie’s bedroom and begin to wander in before I’m suddenly stopped by a guard. Puzzled, I look around. Did I accidentally bring a drink? Does someone need to check my bag? Turns out, it’s neither. “Please wait until a guest is done taking her photo,” she tells me. I peer over her shoulder. A woman wearing a Nap Dress is posing at Carrie’s desk while a photographer snaps away. As soon as she’s done, another scurries to take her seat.
I rush past them before the next photoshoot begins, and find myself idling near a side table with Carrie’s Chanel keychain and mail. Something catches my eye: an envelope from Vogue. I let out a chuckle. The prop is pretty spot on, but for legal reasons, I imagine, they changed the state in the return address. I make a joke about the error to a visitor next to me, clarifying that I write for the real-life magazine. She eyes me and my scuffed white sneakers before politely making small talk back. We’re interrupted when I’m bumped into by a group trying to take pictures on the bed.
When she eventually walks away, I wonder if I’ve failed to live up to her expectations of a Vogue writer—ones Carrie Bradshaw herself, in fact, helped to set: that we’re constantly in strappy heels, constantly shopping at Bergdorf’s, and constantly fabulous. That’s the type of woman being celebrated here, a character who wears head-to-toe designer clothes, completely ignores contributions to her 401k, and marries the emotionally unavailable millionaire who makes a sweeping declaration of love to her in Paris.
Fittingly, the next stop on this tour is Carrie’s closet—although in the Sex and the City Experience, it’s not so much a closet as a giant installation where a club remix of the show’s theme song thumps away. “You’re about to enter Carrie’s dreamworld” an attendant tells me, before taking a dramatic pause. “Follow the flowers.”
I take a deep breath and enter.
There…are curtains? Like, a lot of curtains, forming a sort of breezy maze that leads to a video wall playing Sex and the City’s opening credits. Sarah Jessica Parker’s voice booms from somewhere in the violet-lit ether: “Shopping is my cardio.” Then I take a left, and I’m surrounded by slow-mo montages of Carrie—strutting down the street, pouting in her hallway. A colorful graphic of exploding florals surrounds each dramatic, digital iteration.
The experience’s guides have encouraged me to take my time, to enjoy. (“This will be the best four minutes of your life today!” one chirped as I waited to enter.) But I’m claustrophobic, and Voice-of-God Carrie has just uttered one of my least favorite lines of the entire series—“I have this little substance abuse problem: expensive footwear”*—*so I flee into a room of, well, exactly that. There are rows and rows of designer shoes: the blue Hangisi Manolo Blahniks that sat in the closet as Mr. Big proposed, the Christian Louboutin Petal sandals that Miranda ruined when her water broke.
Several more notable accessories from both the SATC and AJLT archives also appear: JW Anderson’s Pigeon clutch, Judith Leiber’s cupcake purse, Gucci’s double-pocket belt bag, a Fendi Baguette. And in a glass case is arguably the most famous look from the series: a pink American Apparel tank top and vintage tulle tutu, the very look that Carrie wears in Sex and the City’s opening credits (before getting splashed by a bus). “Fact or fiction: According to urban legend, Patricia Field found the tutu in the opening credits of Sex and the City in a $5 bin at a sample sale in 1998,” reads an accompanying plaque. There’s no answer in sight. “Well, that’s fucking stupid,” I mutter.
Yet I immediately regret the outburst. The people around me are toasting Cosmos and flashing Duchenne smiles over stilettos. They deserve uninterrupted joy, an afternoon of indulgent (and Instagram-friendly) nostalgia, not my grumpy cynicism.
After all, Sex and The City means a lot to a lot of people. It offered a groundbreaking depiction of modern womanhood at a time when female sexual desire—and ambition—still felt a little taboo. And more than make those things seem normal, Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, and Miranda made them seem actually glamorous. As I stand there, unbothered by my bare ring finger and filled with so many dreams that they sometimes make me jitter, I realize just how much the show has meant to me, too.
Before I make my exit, an attendant asks if I’d like a takeaway: a frosted pink cupcake from Magnolia Bakery. “Is it free?” I ask, suspicious. He gives a gentle nod. “It’s all part of the experience.”
I step out onto the sidewalk and take a big bite.
