Sarah Jessica Parker is an Emmy award-winning actress and mom who has also made her mark as a style icon. For six seasons, fans welcomed Sarah Jessica and her Sex and the City co-stars into their living rooms every week just to see what the shoe-obsessed fashion plate was wearing!
This fall, Sarah Jessica will return to the big screen in a film with Dennis Quaid and Thomas Haden Church. “It’s called Smart People and it’s a really great, smart movie about love and the complications of being an adult and making decisions. And it’s about really smart people who are complicated,” she says. “I’m really, really excited about it. It was a really great experience.”
“You seem to be excited about a lot,” Oprah says. “You live life with great passion.”
“Well, I have a lot to be grateful and excited for and about, and it’s hard to sort of behave any other way,” Sarah Jessica says.
Since leaving Sex and the City, Sarah Jessica has also been spending lots of time with her 4-year-old son, James Wilke, who is full of questions! “He’s unbelievable,” she says. “He has a lot of questions about science and gravity.” Sometimes, Sarah Jessica says, she leaves answering those up to his dad, Matthew Broderick. “My husband, who is a real brainiac, can take over.”
Aside from loving music, theater and his superhero capes, Sarah Jessica says James Wilke is also very curious about social issues—like what being gay means. “His school is a school in New York City and so there’s people that have children who have two mamas and two papas, and so it sort of authentically happens, this conversation,” she says. “You think very carefully and you’re prudent about the choice of words, and then you talk about people looking for happiness and fulfillment in their life and how all families are different and look different.”
As a mom, Sarah Jessica says that she often thinks about the answers she gives her son. “You’re forced to think a lot about what you’re saying and how you’re saying it and even the tone,” she says.
Still, that doesn’t make the tough questions any easier! “He asked me where babies come from,” she says, “and you find yourself saying, ‘You know, your papa will be home at 6:00, and he’s far better equipped to discuss that particular part of your body than I am.'”
Sarah Jessica and her hubby Matthew Broderick are celebrating their 10-year wedding anniversary. “It’s amazing,” she says. “I actually didn’t realize it was 10 … but he was the one that reminded me last week.”
So what will they do to celebrate? “We have no ideas and we have no babysitter,” she says. “But I expect that we’ll probably cook dinner and spend a better part of the evening with James Wilke.”
One thing they won’t be doing is exchanging gifts, because Sarah Jessica says there’s nothing either of them need. But there is one thing she would like. “I would love a note,” she says. “Because a note, I’ll have it forever.”
Sarah Jessica is often shown in magazine photos taking James Wilke to and from school—something she loves to do. She says spending part of her time at home raising her son has taught her a lot. “I’m one of eight children and my mother is extraordinary and we didn’t have any help of any kind,” she says. “But I think what it is, is that what distinguishes it from a job outside the house is it’s the sort of skills that it takes.”
Those skills, Sarah Jessica says, are things that few can learn otherwise. “It’s people skills, but imagine that compounded, like, when you really need your people skills at your weakest, most vulnerable, your most tired, you [can] call upon skills that no one else in the corporate world would ever be able to summon, because it’s your child and because [your reactions] basically inform everything they’re going to do for the rest of your life.”
Being a stay-at-home mom is the toughest job in the world, Sarah says. “It’s incredibly, incredibly difficult. And I’m so admiring of people who have more than one and do it well,” she says.
In a recent Glamour magazine interview, Sarah Jessica says she is distressed by the sensationalism in our current culture. “I think there’s a lack of critical thinking,” she says.
Often photographed by paparazzi herself, she understands being interested in other people’s lives but feels like the public’s attention should be focused on things other than celebrities. “There’s world events and even local events that are really much more important and probably better for us to be curious about,” she says. “So it’s somewhat distressing because I think we spend the better part of our lives thinking about things that aren’t really substantial or meaningful.”
Like her Sex and the City character, Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah Jessica is also celebrated for her unique sense of style. In 2004, she nabbed a prestigious Fashion Icon Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
Now, she’s a designer herself! This June, she’s launching a low-cost, high-quality clothing line called Bitten, boasting more than 400 items, all at a price of less than $20, at Steve & Barry’s locations nationwide.
“It’s about affordable, well-made American sportswear. It’s about fashion not being a luxury and quality not being a privilege, and we don’t want someone to hold it up and say, ‘Well, you get with you pay for,'” she says. “We worked so hard to make sure it’s everything women deserve.”
Sizes range from 2 to 22. “This was really, really critical criteria to me,” she says. “It was only a natural extension that these clothes are for every woman in this country no matter where you live, what you look like, what your skin color is like, what you are, where you are in the economic strata, everything. And that it’s not for us to decide what looks good on somebody else. It’s for women of all sizes to determine what makes them feel good.”
Sarah Jessica has a lot of fans, but she has a special surprise for two unsuspecting admirers in the studio audience! Andi and Angie wrote The Oprah Show about how much they admire Sarah’s style. “So Sarah Jessica wanted to do something fun with you,” says Oprah. “She’s going to take you backstage so you can try on some Bitten looks!”
After being “bitten” backstage with Sarah Jessica, Andi and Angie strut their stuff. Angie is decked out in a premium straight-cut pant and a gray vest, which can also be worn in a three-piece suit ensemble. Underneath the vest is a breezy white summer top, and she carries one of Sarah Jessica’s favorite bags from the collection. And don’t forget her teal espadrilles!
Andi is wearing the Melinda skirt and an orange and white striped shirt underneath a jean jacket. She tops her ensemble off with cute black espadrille. “You guys look amazing,” Sarah Jessica says.
Sarah even changes into a black Bitten suit for the big reveal! “We have suits that are in gray and black and they come with a trouser or a skirt and a jacket, and the idea is that every woman should be able to have a proper jacket and trouser or jacket and skirt for under $40,” Sarah Jessica says. “It’s affordable for everybody and should be everything you need.”
