I Lived My Best Carrie Bradshaw Life at New York’s ‘Sex and the City’ Exhibit

Like any of the Walt Disney Classics or Marvel comic book series, Sex and The City is the type of legendary enterprise that never stops giving.

At any moment, all these years later, you can still come across screenshots of the HBO show on Twitter, usually of its main protagonist Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) smoking a Marlboro Light or staring pensively at her PowerBook. Instagram is a similar gallery of Samatha Jones’ (Kim Cattrall) philosophical one-liners and Carrie’s “naked dresses.” Maybe the biggest indicator of the series’ staying power is its current reboot And Just Like That…, which is one of the most highly anticipated shows returning this summer.

To promote AJLT’s upcoming second season, as well as SATC’s’ 25th anniversary this past week, HBO (and “Max,” or whatever) held an immersive exhibition titled “And Just Like That… It’s Been 25 Years: A Sex and the City Fan Experience,” celebrating the show’s fabled moments, locations, and ’90s and early aughts fashion. The Daily Beast’s Obsessed got to visit the pop-up during its limited run, and it certainly delivered on the “immersive” aspect.

After Parker announced the exhibition, which runs from June 8-11 in New York City, to her 9 million Instagram followers, tickets sold out rapidly. Eager fans lined up at 477 Broadway to channel life like the show’s four leads. My showing on Friday included fans who each had different histories with SATC—from original viewers of the show when it aired in 1998 to people who have solely watched the reboot (wild!). There were also some less enthusiastic male partners in attendance.

While checking out Carrie’s mountainous designer-shoe display, I met a particularly dedicated fan named Anne Teele, who watched the original broadcast. She drove three hours from Pennsylvania to see the pop-up with her pregnant daughter—who had only seen AJLT and the films—as a sort of last hurrah before she gave birth. Another attendee named Samartha, who began watching the MA-rated show when she was 9, told me she moved from Canada to Manhattan because of the way the series represented the city.

“I don’t know if it’s just me,” she said. “But every time I’m walking through the city, I feel like I’m living the life of [Carrie Bradshaw].”

The exhibit definitely fed into the urbanite fantasy and parasocial relationships that most fans experience when watching Sex and the City. When guests first entered the florally-decorated space, they were greeted by a giant newsstand with old TV Guides featuring the principal cast and other magazines the women—but mostly Parker—have covered throughout the years. (Unfortunately, I didn’t spot any replicas of Carrie’s “Single and Fabulous?” New York magazine cover from the show. What the hell!)

To the left were a series of “I’m a…” displays corresponding to each of the show’s four leads, including Charlotte York (Kristen Davis), and Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon). A highlight reel and plaques with their most iconic quotes, showing their distinctive traits that have made them universal avatars for different types of women. Unfortunately, that’s the most the pop-up really commemorated SATC’s other stars. From then on, the exhibit may have been more aptly named the Carrie Bradshaw Experience.

Guests got to explore Carrie’s storied bedroom. From the spilled pack of Mentos to old incense in her trash bin, the staging was eerily precise, to the point where it felt like her ghost would appear at any second. Guests also got to channel Carrie in a photo op in front of her window where she typically writes her column while she narrates in a voiceover, “I couldn’t help but wonder...” The replica of her Brownstone stoop was another Instagram-friendly stop.

The rest of the pop-up was a fashion archivist’s dream. Before moving onto the final stage of the exhibit, mostly dedicated to Carrie’s iconic looks, attendees walked through “Carrie’s Closet.” The virtual setup featured a sequence of monitors showing a timeline of Carrie’s style from Season 1 of SATC all the way to AJLT. (Let’s just say the difference between her outfits in the original series and the reboot were… stark.)

The final stage was a makeshift museum for Carrie’s costumes, which were sourced by designers Patricia Field and Rebecca Weinberg in the show’s early seasons. Amongst other looks, mannequins displayed Carrie’s vintage white tutu from the opening credit sequence and the cobalt-blue Dolce and Gabbana coat she rocks before she face-planted on a runway in Season 4. There were also glass displays containing the protagonist’s accessories, including a pair of Jimmy Choo heels, a purple Fendi baguette, and a Jean Michel Basquiat “Out Getting Ribs” tote bag.

I also must mention the Post-It wall, a tribute to Jack Berger’s extremely terse (and rude!) note he uses to break up with Carrie in Season 6. Next to a framed replica of Berger’s Post-It, guests added their own Post-Its with their favorite SATC quotes, giving one of Carrie’s most brutal breakups a positive spin. Overwhelmed by the sheer number of brilliant lines from the show, I scribbled down, “I’m like a model who’s taken the high road,” uttered by Samantha in a Season 1 episode I recently rewatched.

If not just another self-congratulatory endeavor or eye-catching marketing tool, the exhibition made a great case for a permanent SATC tourist attraction in Manhattan—in addition to Carrie’s Upper East Side apartment that fans can pose in front of (which happens to actually be in the West Village). Some franchises are so good they should be milked for everything their worth, even if it feels a little repetitive. After this pop-up, I suggest SATC get its own Disney World.

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