Jimmy Choo Revives Carrie Bradshaw's Favorite Shoes With Special Archive Collection
In celebration of Jimmy Choo's three decades in business, the house is reissuing several iconic styles made famous by 'Sex and the City.'
Although Carrie Bradshaw often spoke of her two great loves on Sex and the City, Mr. Big and Aidan, she had another: Choos. The Sarah Jessica Parker character, who famously spent the equivalent of a New York apartment down payment on 40 pairs of designer shoes, was partial to a number of labels, including Manolo Blahnik, Christian Louboutin, and Jimmy Choo. But it was the latter that became a metonymy for Carrie’s belief in the importance of style to the formation of personal identity. And, of course, shorthand for women the world over to use for their most prized footwear. It’s all thanks to a pair of dreamy Jimmy Choo feather-embellished lilac suede slingbacks known simply by the house’s internal product identifier, 72138, that featured in SATC season three, episode one (“Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire”).
In the episode, which premiered on HBO in 2000 and addresses the question of whether women just want to be rescued, the well heeled protagonist plaintively cries out “Wait! I lost my Choo!” when she trips over the 100 mm style while running after a departing Staten Island ferry dressed in one of costume designer Patricia Field’s signature surprising combos: a one-shoulder bodycon dress and a tulle tufted Comme des Garcons coat. By the time Carrie’s Prince Charming du jour, a politician (played by John Slattery who would go on to star as Roger Sterling on Mad Men) turns up on the dock to chauffeur her home to Manhattan in his BMW, this modern day Cinderella has slipped her glass slipper back onto her own foot.
“The 72138 wasn’t just a shoe; it was a symbol of everything Carrie represented: fantasy, style, and strength,” says Sandra Choi, niece of Jimmy Choo’s eponymous co-founder, the brand’s first employee, and its current creative director. “That emotional line became a statement on how integral fashion was to these characters and real people’s lives.” Now, in the lead-up to Jimmy Choo’s 30th anniversary, the 72138 is available to purchase as part of Choi’s The Archive: 1997-2001 capsule collection, which features eight reissues drawn from the label’s early years.
Choi, who says she aspires to be “fearless, glamorous, and always unapologetically myself” like Samantha but also has Miranda’s “practical, driven, and grounded” qualities, asked designer Conner Ives and fashion writer and curator Alexander Fury to help her choose key styles that best represent how Jimmy Choo became a pop cultural phenomenon. Like Jimmy Choo, Ives was born 1996, and was all of two years old when SATC premiered. He recalls that when a babysitter turned on the show at night after he was meant to be asleep, he would sneak out of his room to watch undetected from the staircase. “I had so many questions, mainly relating to the looks,” he says. “I’m sure it inspired a lot.”
These days, Ives is a self-confessed Carrie and frequently cites the character in his seasonal upcycling explorations of female archetypes that gleefully collage different aesthetics and registers. He says the 72138 was an “obvious” choice for the anniversary capsule. “I feel like people would ask questions if we didn’t reissue that amazing shoe,” concurs Fury, who names “the squirrel from Aidan’s shack in Suffern” as his SATC spiritual twin. “Interestingly, this was a shoe from fall 1998, showcased in an episode that aired in 2000—so really, this is the first time since that episode was broadcast that Carrie’s ‘Choo’ is available,” he notes. Another bit of 72138 trivia: the stiletto had an earlier blink-or-you-miss-it-cameo in the fifth episode of the first season (“The Power of Female Sex”) in which a French architect mistakes Carrie for a VIP escort.
To round out the list Choi, Ives, and Fury each separately chose their favorite archival styles and then compared notes. Another shoe-in: the Leo, a spring 1998 ankle strap sandal in leopard-print grosgrain that Carrie wears with her American Apparel tank and tiered tulle skirt when she gets splashed by a passing bus emblazoned with her photo and the tagline “Carrie Bradshaw knows good sex” on the side in the series’ intro. (While the final cut of the title sequence is cropped too tightly to see Carrie’s feet, her Choos are visible in promotional set photos.) They also selected a second third season style, the fall 2000 python knee-high boot called the Faro that Carrie wears with a fur coat and plaid miniskirt when she comes home bearing Jimmy Choo shopping bags to find the politician waiting on her stoop.
The color of those shopping bags infuses the capsule shoeboxes. “The winter bloom color holds deep personal and brand history,” says Choi, noting that in addition to Y2K-era packaging, it was the color of a velvet sofa in Jimmy Choo’s first store on London’s Motcomb Street. “That shade evokes comfort, legacy, sensuality, and an intriguing new energy. Amethyst has always represented transformation and creativity to me, and it felt like the right colour to reintroduce as we step into this next chapter with the Archive capsule.”
The Archive:1997-2001 capsule collection is available in select Jimmy Choo stores and jimmychoo.com.
Lead image clockwise from top left: Courtesy of Jimmy Choo; SHUTTERSTOCK; Courtesy of Jimmy Choo; GraphicaArtis/Getty Images. Center: Courtesy of Jimmy Choo.
