Samantha Jones and Aidan Shaw weren’t the only things that returned to the Sex and the City universe on the just concluded second season of And Just Like That…. The fashion-centric franchise also brought back one of Carrie Bradshaw’s most iconic and surprising looks.
The style-savvy character that Sarah Jessica Parker first brought to life on the HBO show in 1998 memorably wore a tutu on the street (in the opening credits!), a naked dress (before it became a red carpet trend), that Dolce & Gabbana coat that she wore with underwear as she became “fashion roadkill,” her so-called Revenge Dress and so much more. Still, the bird headpiece she debuted in the first SATC movie in 2008, and which will soon go up for auction at Sotheby’s, stood out.
‘It is such a statement’
“It is such a statement,” personal stylist and television host Joseph Katz tells Yahoo Entertainment. “One thing that I love about this style and the look is that it is something that you would not expect and it takes a brave, stylish person to pull it off like Carrie.”
Another Los Angeles-based stylist, Tiffany Briseno, notes that it was very Carrie, who wore it atop her head as she donned that stunning Vivienne Westwood dress for her ill-fated original wedding to Mr. Big (Chris Noth).
“This was such a clever way of having the ‘something blue’ element in Carrie’s look,” Briseno says. “This piece was the perfect blend of romance, art and imagination. It certainly lined up with Carrie’s nontraditional approach to a tradition.”
The wedding didn’t happen, of course, when Big couldn’t bring himself to join her at the New York Public Library venue. In the movie, Carrie lamented to her friends, “He couldn’t get out of the car. After 10 years of what he already put me through, he couldn’t make the effort and get out of the car. I made the effort. I put a bird on my head!”
Cynthia Nixon’s Miranda countered, “Is that what that was? I thought it was feathers.”
The look was so extreme, even for Carrie Bradshaw, that SJP told Vogue it only ended up in the show at all because she and the wardrobe team ambushed writer/director Michael Patrick King. They didn’t think he’d go for it.
“When I came to set, he was like, ‘Why is there a bird on your head?’ And I was like, ‘Look at the bird. You would’ve made the same decision.'”
King, of course, relented. And the entire ensemble worked so well that they chose to bring it back on the premiere episode of AJLT…‘s second season in June. It fit perfectly into the storyline about the women attending the Met Gala-inspired Met Ball, which was themed “Veiled Beauty.” Writers added a cape and opera gloves to the ensemble and voila.
King saw Carrie’s look as moving on after that devastating moment in the wedding dress and the death of the man she eventually married.
Parker told TV Insider in June that wearing the ensemble again was “amazing. And it was a nice challenge to figure out what it would be this time around. It was nice to give it some poetry that was happy.”
The bird headpiece’s estimated value
Although the headpiece itself required some extremely delicate handling. Series costume designers Danny Santiago and Molly Rogers told Entertainment Weekly in June that the feather had come from a vintage hat and was more than a century old the first time they used it.
Santiago was “scared to death” of it, he said. “I was like, let’s make a stunt-double blue bird and just use that one because you’re pinning it into a hairdo for hours.”
The headpiece carries an estimate of $40,000 to $70,000 in Sotheby’s event, its inaugural Fashion Icons auction, where its listed alongside pieces worn by the likes of Princess Diana, Michelle Obama and Madonna.
Even with all that star power, Cynthia Houlton, the global head of fashion and accessories at Sotheby’s, says the item stands out.
“It’s pretty amazing in terms of the colors, the feathers, just the condition of it,” she says. “But up close, it is a taxidermied bird, it’s not just feathers.”
In fact, she notes, it is — or at least was — an actual Bird of Paradise.
That’s why Katz emphasizes that “this is not a piece for the faint of heart. It takes a fearless trendsetter like Carrie to put her stamp on it and make it iconic!”
The auction house’s Houlton explains that the buyer for such a piece will likely fit into the category of either museums, high net-worth individuals and collectors or investors. “They see these pieces as having value and they’re looking to acquire them because they want to have a diversified portfolio,” she says.
Online bids open Thursday, Aug. 31 and run through Thursday, Sept. 14. But even those who aren’t putting in a bid can see the bird headpiece and the other items as part of a public exhibition from Thursday, Sept. 7 to Wednesday, Sept. 13 at Sotheby’s New York in New York City.
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