Patricia Field - Famous stylist
Patricia Field Confessions of a Shopaholic
Patricia Field built a cult following by dressing the fashionable set onscreen. Some pros say she gets it wrong. THEY are wrong.
By Candice Rainey
I'll admit it. I can't wait to see February's Confessions of a Shopaholic, the film based on the book about a New York City writer who's addicted to plastic. And yes, mostly for the clothes, because they are styled by Patricia Field-the gravely voiced, diabolical genius who turned four single ladies into fashion superheroines on HBO's seminal soap Sex and the City, who birthed Ugly Betty's ugly, and who turned rosy-cheeked Anne Hathaway into a cutthroat Chanel-clad magazine editrix-in-training in The Devil Wears Prada. There, I confessed. I'm one of those. A girl from the Midwest who wanted to be-or rather, dress-just like Carrie Bradshaw; a character Field morphed into a fashion messiah for the masses by bedecking her in an endless parade of what at the time seemed like exotic, big city paraphernalia-nameplate necklaces, flower pins, Manolos. It's no doubt why HSN-reaching more than 90 million homes-launched a limited-edition line designed by Field in September, inspired by pieces from the SATC movie and show. A decade after Carrie's inception, women across America are still looking for answers from their Cosmo-slugging style savior.
Like most fledgling SATC fans who resided in the flyover states, I had never heard of Patricia Field before the show aired in 1998. I was unaware that the Queens native had first carved out a niche in NYC’s fashion underworld back in 1966, when she opened her Greenwich Village boutique, dolling up club kids and transvestites in sequins, feathers, and unnatural fibers before I was even born. It wasn’t until 1986 that she parlayed her knack for playing dress-up into the entertainment industry as a costumer for Crime Story, a ’60s Michael Mann mafia drama. Three years later, after working on smaller indie films and made-for-TV movies, she scored her first of two Emmys for the Disney Channel’s Mother Goose Rock ’n’ Rhyme, and eventually met her muse, Sarah Jessica Parker, in 1995, styling her and Mia Farrow for the film Miami Rhapsody.
It was right around the second season of SATC, when the fab four’s wardrobes began to teeter on “what the hell is she wearing?” territory, that my obsession with Field began. I remember the episode: Carrie, post-Big breakup (the first!), heads to Yankee Stadium with her BFFs in a full-length fur coat and heels. I swallowed the fairy tale whole. Of course women in New York wear chinchilla and stilettos to baseball games! I thought. They don hot pants and tube tops to the grocery store! They put on cowboy hats and midriff baring halter tops for cocktail parties in the Hamptons! That’s fashion with a capital F, right? Rocking ridiculously inappropriate clothes for what the day’s to-do list calls for. What the hell did I know? I was from Salt Lake City, a town obsessed with fleece and Gore-Tex, not It Bags and European labels. It was a world so incredibly far-flung from mine—where a ski parka wasn’t just meant for, you know, skiing, but for dinner dates and weddings, too!—that I became devout, lapping up Field’s sartorial oddities, which gave the proverbial finger to practicality.
Of course, the cruel joke, I quickly gleaned after moving to New York and landing in the magazine world, is that Field’s “more is more” aesthetic isn’t considered fashionable by the fashionable. After styling The Devil Wears Prada, the 2006 film based on the roman à clef by former Vogue assistant Lauren Weisberger, The New York Times ran an assault on Field, ticking off just how many times the flame-haired stylist got it wrong about the way the chic-elite get dressed in the morning: “Other self-appointed critics pin Devil’s visual shortcomings on a misapprehension of what truly counts as ‘fabulous’ in the realm of style. It is not summed up by a parade of Gucci, Pucci, Dolce & Gabbana, and Prada, they say, but by breezier labels like Chloé, Marc Jacobs, and Marni, which are coveted by young trendsetters but are in scant evidence on-screen.”
I’m sort of embarrassed to admit to my fashion editor friends that I couldn’t get enough of the makeover montage, when Andy, the film’s schlubby protagonist played by Anne Hathaway, is whisked away to the magazine’s fashion closet and comes out in head-to-toe Chanel—bouclé jacket, mountains of chain necklaces, thigh-high leather boots, minis***t, and loads of eyeliner. It’s something I would never wear; my personal style leans toward minimalist meets downtown—black cigarette jeans, kitten heels, an angular haircut complete with a curtain of bangs. But I think I’ve watched it a dozen times, and if it pops up on cable I’ll wait for the scene to come on again.
I’m a pop culture editor, after all, and though I spent my first few years writing about fashion at a men’s magazine I was never passionate enough to keep myself entrenched in that world. And yet I love the virtual reality of fashion, the way wardrobe can play a lead role in a movie or on TV. There’s something about the way Field does fashion-porn on-screen—raunchy, eye-popping, unapologetically costume—that is undeniably satisfying to watch. “I think of her as Edith Head,” says Darren Star, SATC’s cocreator, referring to the iconic costume designer who was nominated for 35 Academy Awards from the late 1940s through the ’70s. “I was interested in pushing the boundaries with this show, and she was interested in that as well, but with the clothes. I remember those discussions, saying, ‘Okay, people are going to be so transfixed by what these women are wearing, are they listening to what they’re saying?’ ”
Star’s concerns were valid. It’s Field’s overreaching aesthetic that undoubtedly nabbed her the HSN line among other lucrative collaborations, including Payless Shoes and British chain Marks & Spencer. Field single-handedly created a fashion sorority for women who want not only to emulate her Frankensteins but revel in the fun of donning flower pins and ice pick heels with their girlfriends, to dress up and not give a damn what others think, even if they all end up looking, you know, exactly alike (which in real fashion circles is considered disastrous). “I would describe it as surreal,” says the costume designer about her trademark look. “Just above reality. It’s totally recognizable and understandable. It’s just pumped a bit. If it were over the top, it would be a failure.”
Funny, considering her over-the-topness is exactly what I love about her ability to tell a story through clothes. It’s also an insanely bankable talent: The SATC film pulled in more than $150 million, while Devil made more than $124 million. Even Star admits, “She’s the only one I ever want to use.”
When the movie finally hit theaters, I didn’t care if Big and Carrie got together in the end (boorrrinngg…). No doubt like the other millions who had to see it opening weekend, I wanted to fall under Field’s spell. My favorite meta moment came when Carrie claimed it was actually a bird, not a feather, she wore on her head at her ill-fated nuptials, and the perplexed look that swept across Charlotte’s face, as in, “Really?” She might as well have turned to the camera and said, “Yes, we all know how ridiculous we look. Didn’t you miss us?”
Field’s designer buffet failed to impress fashion heavyweights including Vivienne Westwood, who designed Carrie’s wedding dress in the film. “I thought Sex and the City was supposed to be about cutting-edge fashion,” the designer was quoted as saying. “And there was nothing remotely memorable or interesting about what I saw.” I’ll have to respectfully disagree with the godmother of punk fashion. When I left the theater, I was already thinking about the wardrobe changes I couldn’t wait to rewatch on cable.
Patricia Field built a cult following by dressing the fashionable set onscreen. Some pros say she gets it wrong. THEY are wrong.
By Candice Rainey
I'll admit it. I can't wait to see February's Confessions of a Shopaholic, the film based on the book about a New York City writer who's addicted to plastic. And yes, mostly for the clothes, because they are styled by Patricia Field-the gravely voiced, diabolical genius who turned four single ladies into fashion superheroines on HBO's seminal soap Sex and the City, who birthed Ugly Betty's ugly, and who turned rosy-cheeked Anne Hathaway into a cutthroat Chanel-clad magazine editrix-in-training in The Devil Wears Prada. There, I confessed. I'm one of those. A girl from the Midwest who wanted to be-or rather, dress-just like Carrie Bradshaw; a character Field morphed into a fashion messiah for the masses by bedecking her in an endless parade of what at the time seemed like exotic, big city paraphernalia-nameplate necklaces, flower pins, Manolos. It's no doubt why HSN-reaching more than 90 million homes-launched a limited-edition line designed by Field in September, inspired by pieces from the SATC movie and show. A decade after Carrie's inception, women across America are still looking for answers from their Cosmo-slugging style savior.
Like most fledgling SATC fans who resided in the flyover states, I had never heard of Patricia Field before the show aired in 1998. I was unaware that the Queens native had first carved out a niche in NYC’s fashion underworld back in 1966, when she opened her Greenwich Village boutique, dolling up club kids and transvestites in sequins, feathers, and unnatural fibers before I was even born. It wasn’t until 1986 that she parlayed her knack for playing dress-up into the entertainment industry as a costumer for Crime Story, a ’60s Michael Mann mafia drama. Three years later, after working on smaller indie films and made-for-TV movies, she scored her first of two Emmys for the Disney Channel’s Mother Goose Rock ’n’ Rhyme, and eventually met her muse, Sarah Jessica Parker, in 1995, styling her and Mia Farrow for the film Miami Rhapsody.
It was right around the second season of SATC, when the fab four’s wardrobes began to teeter on “what the hell is she wearing?” territory, that my obsession with Field began. I remember the episode: Carrie, post-Big breakup (the first!), heads to Yankee Stadium with her BFFs in a full-length fur coat and heels. I swallowed the fairy tale whole. Of course women in New York wear chinchilla and stilettos to baseball games! I thought. They don hot pants and tube tops to the grocery store! They put on cowboy hats and midriff baring halter tops for cocktail parties in the Hamptons! That’s fashion with a capital F, right? Rocking ridiculously inappropriate clothes for what the day’s to-do list calls for. What the hell did I know? I was from Salt Lake City, a town obsessed with fleece and Gore-Tex, not It Bags and European labels. It was a world so incredibly far-flung from mine—where a ski parka wasn’t just meant for, you know, skiing, but for dinner dates and weddings, too!—that I became devout, lapping up Field’s sartorial oddities, which gave the proverbial finger to practicality.
Of course, the cruel joke, I quickly gleaned after moving to New York and landing in the magazine world, is that Field’s “more is more” aesthetic isn’t considered fashionable by the fashionable. After styling The Devil Wears Prada, the 2006 film based on the roman à clef by former Vogue assistant Lauren Weisberger, The New York Times ran an assault on Field, ticking off just how many times the flame-haired stylist got it wrong about the way the chic-elite get dressed in the morning: “Other self-appointed critics pin Devil’s visual shortcomings on a misapprehension of what truly counts as ‘fabulous’ in the realm of style. It is not summed up by a parade of Gucci, Pucci, Dolce & Gabbana, and Prada, they say, but by breezier labels like Chloé, Marc Jacobs, and Marni, which are coveted by young trendsetters but are in scant evidence on-screen.”
I’m sort of embarrassed to admit to my fashion editor friends that I couldn’t get enough of the makeover montage, when Andy, the film’s schlubby protagonist played by Anne Hathaway, is whisked away to the magazine’s fashion closet and comes out in head-to-toe Chanel—bouclé jacket, mountains of chain necklaces, thigh-high leather boots, minis***t, and loads of eyeliner. It’s something I would never wear; my personal style leans toward minimalist meets downtown—black cigarette jeans, kitten heels, an angular haircut complete with a curtain of bangs. But I think I’ve watched it a dozen times, and if it pops up on cable I’ll wait for the scene to come on again.
I’m a pop culture editor, after all, and though I spent my first few years writing about fashion at a men’s magazine I was never passionate enough to keep myself entrenched in that world. And yet I love the virtual reality of fashion, the way wardrobe can play a lead role in a movie or on TV. There’s something about the way Field does fashion-porn on-screen—raunchy, eye-popping, unapologetically costume—that is undeniably satisfying to watch. “I think of her as Edith Head,” says Darren Star, SATC’s cocreator, referring to the iconic costume designer who was nominated for 35 Academy Awards from the late 1940s through the ’70s. “I was interested in pushing the boundaries with this show, and she was interested in that as well, but with the clothes. I remember those discussions, saying, ‘Okay, people are going to be so transfixed by what these women are wearing, are they listening to what they’re saying?’ ”
Star’s concerns were valid. It’s Field’s overreaching aesthetic that undoubtedly nabbed her the HSN line among other lucrative collaborations, including Payless Shoes and British chain Marks & Spencer. Field single-handedly created a fashion sorority for women who want not only to emulate her Frankensteins but revel in the fun of donning flower pins and ice pick heels with their girlfriends, to dress up and not give a damn what others think, even if they all end up looking, you know, exactly alike (which in real fashion circles is considered disastrous). “I would describe it as surreal,” says the costume designer about her trademark look. “Just above reality. It’s totally recognizable and understandable. It’s just pumped a bit. If it were over the top, it would be a failure.”
Funny, considering her over-the-topness is exactly what I love about her ability to tell a story through clothes. It’s also an insanely bankable talent: The SATC film pulled in more than $150 million, while Devil made more than $124 million. Even Star admits, “She’s the only one I ever want to use.”
When the movie finally hit theaters, I didn’t care if Big and Carrie got together in the end (boorrrinngg…). No doubt like the other millions who had to see it opening weekend, I wanted to fall under Field’s spell. My favorite meta moment came when Carrie claimed it was actually a bird, not a feather, she wore on her head at her ill-fated nuptials, and the perplexed look that swept across Charlotte’s face, as in, “Really?” She might as well have turned to the camera and said, “Yes, we all know how ridiculous we look. Didn’t you miss us?”
Field’s designer buffet failed to impress fashion heavyweights including Vivienne Westwood, who designed Carrie’s wedding dress in the film. “I thought Sex and the City was supposed to be about cutting-edge fashion,” the designer was quoted as saying. “And there was nothing remotely memorable or interesting about what I saw.” I’ll have to respectfully disagree with the godmother of punk fashion. When I left the theater, I was already thinking about the wardrobe changes I couldn’t wait to rewatch on cable.
