It was a perfect sun-drenched morning in Manhattan, and an impossibly soigné crowd was tittering excitedly in front of the Soho lofts where “And Just Like That… It’s Been 25 Years, A Sex and the City Experience” was set to open. Stepping through the glass doors, past a recreation of a newsstand stocked with stacks of Vogue magazines, the crowd was swiftly transported into the iconic HBO series that debuted 25 years ago and whose forward-thinking legacy continues in the Max Original series And Just Like That…, which will begin its second season on June 22.
It feels impossible to overstate the cultural impact of Sex and the City, which broke barriers with its wildly entertaining yet authentic and meaningful look at the lives of four empowered thirty-something women, who still maintain their grip on the zeitgeist decades later. And Just Like That… continues the journey of Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte, speaking to a wider and more diverse audience than ever before, as they grapple with grief, sexuality and gender nonconformity, and navigate the richly multicultural city. Its second season is poised to be the show of the summer.
The experience began with an exclusive panel discussion between Sarah Jessica Parker and costume designers Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago, moderated by Vogue editor Chioma Nnadi. “All of it felt exciting, it felt fresh, it felt wonderfully unfamiliar,” Parker said of the show’s beginnings. “And I think we would never have known that 25 years later we would be trying to recall those early feelings.”
The trio charted a course through Sex and the City’s fashion history, as Parker and Rogers explained how Carrie’s eclectic looks came together. “I ve certainly learned from the character about being brave and courageous and not applying anybody else s rules to the way you choose to walk out the door,” Parker said. “I learned a huge amount from Molly and [costume designer Patricia Field] about history and points of reference that were unfamiliar to me. What were the kids on the streets of Japan doing, what were people in Argentina doing. They were pulling from magazines from the Middle East, and they always had their eyes on the world.”
After the discussion, guests wandered through the main event space, where several of the show’s most iconic fashion looks were displayed. Think: The blue satin trench coat that Carrie wore when she famously tripped on the runway, the ballet pink tank top and vintage tulle tutu from the show’s opening credits, and the gold Carrie necklace. There were 27 pairs of Carrie’s beloved shoes on a dedicated Wall of Heels, plus an interactive Post-It Wall (a nod to the famous Berger break-up note) where fans left heartfelt notes on how the series had impacted their lives while sipping drinks from the Ketel One Cosmo Bar.
Yet the undisputed highlight of the experience: Carrie’s brownstone and an exact life-size replica of her bedroom, which had been painstakingly recreated down to every minute detail. There was the desk where she wrote her columns on a beat-up laptop, a glass of daisies to her left and a 2000 guide to New York City restaurants to her right. In the waste bin were crumpled scraps of paper and a plastic takeaway bag with used chopsticks jutting out, while her rotary phone sat on top of a pile of old fashion magazines and self-help tomes.
That night, a well-heeled crowd arrived to fete the series once more at the Vogue Opening Night Event, winding their way through Carrie’s apartment, into her closet, through the Dreamscape—a hall lined with mirrors and video projections of Carrie’s most fabulous fashion moments—and into the central space, where hot and pale pink peonies filled the room and delighted attendees stood elbow to elbow, craning their necks to admire Carrie’s cupcake minaudière and pigeon-shaped clutch. In line with both Vogue and Max’s mission to uplift and empower stories and storytellers across communities—from LGBTQIA+ to Latinx and black creators and audiences—a beautifully diverse crowd turned up for the affair.
DJ Mazurbate mixed tracks with the likes of social media creator star Clara Perlmutter, fashion designer Zac Posen, model Aaron Rose Philip, show-runner Michael Patrick King, and writer Candace Bushnell, whose columns were the basis for the original series. Of course, the arrival of And Just Like That...stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis, Sarita Choudhury, Nicole Ari Parker, and Karen Pittman caused ripples of excitement, as they embraced and posed happily for photo after photo.
One of two custom cocktails in hand—a Cosmo called “the Manhattan Belle” and ”the Pink Drink, Please” mocktail version—visitors made their way to the main attraction of the evening: the Vogue photo booth, a recreation of the set of Carrie’s bridal shoot from the first film. With a chic pink drink in hand, guests reclined on the green velvet chaise lounge, surrounded by an explosion of hothouse flowers, and gave their best Carrie for the camera, walking away with a one-of-a-kind portrait souvenir. (Small wonder the queue lasted until the party’s end.)
As fans lined up to celebrate that night and across the weekend (the tickets sold out well in advance), one could feel how deeply the series had embedded itself into the fabric of modern life—and given the highly anticipated release of And Just Like That… season two, it’s clear that the story is far from over.