When Sarah Jessica Parker launched her shoe collection at Nordstrom in downtown Seattle, she looked every bit the part of a fashion icon.
But that doesn’t mean she spent a fortune on her outfit.
“It’s an old Anne Klein jumper, from a thrift store,” she said. “I always liked thrift stores. Some of it was out of necessity because I didn’t have a lot of money, I couldn’t have bought new clothing at a nice store.”
Now that she can, Parker still believes in mixing high-end with resale.
A trait she shares with her most popular character, “Carrie” on Sex and the City.
When the show started, the budget was small and the wardrobe designer consigned a lot of pieces.
“Maybe because of that connection, the necessity of thrift with Carrie’s sort of reckless indulgence in luxury and high price clothing, kind of helped us tell the story,” Parker said.
Thrifting helped Parker tell her own story, too.
“There was a place in New York City called Alice Underground,” she said. “It was a thrift store on the Upper West Side, and they just had these big trunks, and there were hundreds and hundreds of dresses, thrown in, balled up and wrinkled in various states of neglect. But I knew from the beginning that nobody else would have that dress.”
To this day, she believes clothing is a means to personal expression.
“In the younger part of your life, you spend a lot of years just trying to fit in, just trying to fit in, just trying to be like everyone else. And then this shift happens for most people, and then they spend the rest of their lives saying I’m actually different, I’m actually myself,” Parker said. “It illustrates or expresses or conveys that you’re your own person. And sometimes, you can’t use words, or you don’t have the confidence to say that. Sometimes what you wear helps tell somebody something.”
Aug 29, 2014
