“I want to talk about that hat,” Emmy-winning “And Just Like That” costume designer Molly Rogers tells Page Six Style.
Many people have given their opinions on the hat she’s referring to — a voluminous and floppy gingham chapeau by Maryam Keyhani that went viral both in paparazzi photos while the HBO show was filming and when it ultimately appeared in the Season 3 premiere last month.
“Do you want Carrie to walk through the park with Seema with a straw hat on from L.L.Bean? I don’t know, I can do it. I mean, I don’t want to,” Rogers laments of the backlash, which saw viewers comparing Sarah Jessica Parker to Strawberry Shortcake.
“That kind of annoyed me, because I think, at this point, we’re all a big family, we all watch the show, we know what it is. That fazes you?” she says.
Still, Rogers and co-costume designer Danny Santiago — who both worked on the original “Sex and the City” and recently teamed up with Fashionphile on an exclusive edit inspired by the show — had a feeling “people were going to come for us,” as the latter puts it.
Parker, meanwhile, stands by the hat; it was her idea to wear it in the first place, after all.
“She grabbed it. It was on a table and she grabbed it,” Santiago remembers. “She just went to the table, looked in the mirror, and was like, ‘I love it. We have to do it.’”
Adds Rogers, “We always put the weird stuff out, not knowing [what the actors will gravitate towards] — like the pigeon purse.”
And ultimately, shocking fans with her fashion choices is “who Carrie is,” according to Santiago.
“Carrie goes for something that nobody else would consider, but she’ll do it, and she’ll support it, and she’ll love it, because she dresses for herself, she’s not dressing for anybody else,” the costume designer explains.
“Carrie wants to have fun in fashion. She wants to explore her fashion identity and who she is, and it can change from one day the next. One day it’ll be sexy. One day it’ll be more eccentric. She dresses for who she feels like for that day.”
And to hear Rogers tell it, the outsized backlash sparked by the oversized accessory could be a sign of the times.
“I wonder if people can even suspend belief — you know, I wonder if people get carried away anymore, so to speak,” she says. “Can you watch a show [and enjoy it] … or are we all just, like, ‘Hated it!’”
While the design duo have no issues securing whatever styles they want for the spinoff, that wasn’t the case in the early days of “Sex and the City.”
Since the original series had a much smaller budget at the start, legendary wardrobe stylist Patricia Field — with whom Rogers worked for many years — would have to beg for the funds to fill Carrie’s closet with designer finds.
“When Carrie sees Big and Natasha in Central Park, that was the most expensive dress we ever bought her. It was $900. We couldn’t afford that back then,” Rogers recalls.
“Those things are so sweet because now, the world is your oyster.”
Even “SATC” and “AJLT” writer and director Michael Patrick King, who once pushed back against certain looks, now lets the duo have free rein when it comes to the show’s fashion.
“We really broke his spirit,” Rogers jokes. “He gave up. White flag.”
And for every questionable accessory, the world of “Sex and the City” has given us plenty of iconic ones; who could forget Carrie’s Fendi Baguette, Samantha’s red Hermès Birkin or Charlotte’s extensive collection of Chanel bags? (All of the above are reflected in Rogers and Santiago’s Fashionphile curation, of course.)
The pair borrowed a number of purses from the luxury resale platform for Season 3, including styles from Bottega Veneta and Chanel.
“We really try to partner and pair with what we’re missing. And we can always fill the hole, the handbag hole, because there’s such a selection [at Fashionphile],” Rogers says.
“Having a resource like this … we come in and we’re like, ‘We need pink bags, we need blue bags, we need something that’s [appropriate for] evening or has got a texture to it.’”
Considering “there’s not a lot of crossover” between the core characters’ personal styles, as Santiago says, highly specific pulls are key.
“There’s such a strong DNA to the show,” he says. “It’s kind of like everybody has their own lane on a highway, and [we] follow that roadmap.”
And with characters as colorful as these, fittings are always tons of fun.
“I feel so grateful, and I hope people believe me. It is so rare and unusual to be on a show like this, [where] anybody walks through the door and starts to get naked, I’m gonna have a good time,” Rogers jokes.
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