Most actors might suggest a prop or two for their character’s apartment. Sarah Jessica Parker suggests thrift stores. She spots vintage ribbons at a forgotten shop and envisions them as upholstery. She saves a chandelier from a Broadway play and hangs it in Carrie’s hallway. She notices a madras shirt that matches one Carrie wore seasons ago and suggests it turn into a daybed cushion. After nearly three decades of inhabiting Carrie Bradshaw’s world, Parker is the character’s creative conscience.
“Nothing is put on stage that she hasn’t previewed,” set decorator says Karin Wiesel Holmes, who has worked on Sex and the City since season two. “Or if she walks in and she’s like, ‘What is this? I’ve seen it in a hundred design magazines already.’ Off it goes.”
Her rejection of pieces is not to be particular, but rather to protect what makes Carrie authentic. “No one knows that character better than Sarah Jessica,” Wiesel Holmes explains. “She’s so dialed in, she knows the character.”
Parker’s character-first thinking begins in unexpected places. “Some of the first purchases was a painting and some chairs that she saw when she was on a walk in the window of Housing Works,” Wiesel Holmes recalls. “We really tried hard to shop as Carrie,” revealing that “it was important to her also to consider shopping locally and sustainably and with mind to our budget.”
The team struggled to source the scripted fabric for Carrie’s chaise lounge (a piece that wouldn’t arrive for six months). “We were scratching our heads trying to find worthy fabric. And we were striking out all over,” Wiesel Holmes remembers. “And finally, we were like, ‘What would Carrie do? What does she like?’” Parker casually suggested a vintage ribbon store she knew somewhere in the city. The team found the vintage ribbons and transformed them into upholstery for a chaise built on the original base from the Sex and the City series. “I think it turned out wonderfully. And it’s definitely a unique, one-of-a-kind piece,” Holmes says.
Parker thinks constantly about how Carrie would actually live. “I had bought a vintage madras patchwork shirt. And it was similar to the one that Carrie wore in a scene in season one of And Just Like That,” Wiesel Holmes explains. “I think it was in a conversation with Sarah Jessica and [production designer] Miguel and myself where we said, ‘What if we just upholstered [the daybed in Carrie’s office] in that shirt?’” They sourced matching shirts from Etsy, leaving in original details like embroidery and pockets.
Her emotional attachment to meaningful objects reveals everything about her process. The chandelier from Plaza Suite—the Neil Simon play she starred in with husband Matthew Broderick—now hangs as the centerpiece of Carrie’s two-story hallway after Parker asked to bring it home from London.
Parker’s instincts extend to minutiae that other people may never consider. “She will say, ‘Oh, Carrie would never have that. Carrie would never do that. Carrie would have little cocktail stirrers and matchbooks and little knickknacks from the restaurants and bars that she’s visited,’” Wiesel Holmes says. “She likes the artwork to be shown to her ahead of time. She did a walk-through seeing the various chairs and ideas as they were growing.”
Three decades in, Parker has turned set decoration into character development. The townhouse now houses vintage ribbons turned into furniture, shirts transformed into upholstery, and a Broadway chandelier that followed her home. It’s functional, personal, and entirely her own vision of who Carrie really is.
Julia Cancilla is the engagement editor (and resident witch) at ELLE Decor, where she oversees the brand’s social media platforms, covers design trends and culture, and writes the monthly ELLE Decoroscope column. Julia built her background at Inked magazine, where she grew their social media audiences by two million and penned feature articles focusing on pop culture, art, and lifestyle.