City slicker: Why Emily is the new Carrie Bradshaw
With the same creator and costume designer as Sex And The City, a new Netflix show is successfully f illing the gaping fashion void left by Sarah Jessica Parker’s beloved character, writes Meadhbh McGrath
Imagine you could transport yourself out of lockdown to a picturesque cafe terrace overlooking the Seine. Can’t speak French? Doesn’t matter. You’re kitted out in Chanel’s 2020 Cruise Collection, an array of gorgeous suitors lines up to kiss your hand and you eat a pain au chocolat for breakfast every day while magically never gaining weight. This wish fulfilment scenario is essentially the premise of Netflix’s latest series, Emily In Paris, starring Lily Collins as the titular American exported to the French capital to advise on social media strategy at a luxury marketing agency.
Local critics have dismissed the show as “embarrassing” and “ridiculous”, complaining that it presents a picture-postcard version of Paris stuffed with clichés and caricatures. Yet Emily In Paris seems to address this in an episode where Emily and her co-worker debate the value of American romantic comedies. Her colleague argues that they are “foolish” and “dishonest”; he prefers “a French ending”, which he says is “more like life — he dies, or loses a limb, or she prefers to be a lesbian”. Emily responds: “Don’t you want to go to the movies to escape life?”
Perhaps we’re all eager to escape life right now, which may explain why Emily In Paris has held on to the top spot on Netflix’s mostwatched list all week, and its creator Darren Star is already teasing a second season.
Star is best known as the creator of Sex And The City, and Emily In Paris shares many of the fairytale qualities of that series. How could this woman possibly get a job in Paris when she doesn’t speak a word of French? Why is every man she meets so devastatingly handsome? Where is she getting the money for this beautiful apartment — and all of those Chanel bags, for that matter?
Speaking of Chanel, Emily In Paris has the same costume designer as Sex And
The City, Patricia
Field ( right), who also worked on The
Devil Wears Prada, Ugly Betty and Star’s other current series, Younger.
It makes sense then, that Emily In Paris has a similar sartorial spirit, if not an identical look, to Sex And The City. And given she’s an American twenty-something, it’s unsurprising that she would aspire to dress like Carrie Bradshaw.
“We really wanted to make sure that Emily was not a new Carrie,” actress Collins told Variety. “But I think Emily grew up watching Sex And The City, and I think she loved Carrie Bradshaw. I think that probably Carrie was one of those inspirations to her, as were all the other women in that show.”
Instead of dreaming of being a fashion writer, Emily dreams of being a marketing executive and social media influencer, but she shares Carrie’s unapologetically maximalist sense of style.
Field has said she added a couple of Easter eggs for Sex And The City fans, including a pair of earrings that read “Emily” in cursive, an homage to Carrie’s famous and muchemulated nameplate necklace. There’s also a black tulle skirt worn to a perfume launch that nods to Carrie’s mint tulle skirt in the final episode of Sex And The City, which also takes place in Paris. And Emily has her own
modelling mishap too, when she gets roped in to wearing a couture gown at an auction, but rather than falling flat on her face, she gets splattered with paint in a publicity stunt by a streetwear design duo.
Field worked with costume designer Marylin Fitoussi to develop Emily’s eclectic wardrobe, which is loaded with French brands. There is the aforementioned Chanel — highlights include a metallic moto jacket and, later, a boxy green coat, worn with a checked miniskirt and bucket hat — along with Kenzo, Jean Paul Gaultier, Sandro, Maje and
The Kooples. We also see her in cool pieces by European labels like Essentiel Antwerp and Ganni, and even a number of highstreet items, among them a colour-blocked River Island coat, a quilted & Other Stories jacket and a red sequinned Zara blazer, plus handbags from Asos and Aldo.
While Carrie loved Manolo Blahnik pumps, Emily favours sculptural and printed heeled booties by Christian Louboutin, Dorateymur and Vivienne Westwood. Her outerwear is particularly eye-catching, from a fantastic Moschino shoe-printed coat to a floral OffWhite puffer jacket with matching mini dress. And they’re not all the latest collections either, suggesting a wardrobe carefully crafted over a decade.
Emily loves graphic prints that could risk looking tacky on a less courageous wearer, and also has a penchant for literal dressing. For her first day at the new office, she chooses an Eiffel Tower-printed blouse over a snakeskin mini skirt and Louboutin booties emblazoned with “Paris” and French postage stickers. The result is cartoonish and markedly unsophisticated, but very fun.
She frequently wears berets and ties silk scarves around her neck (though her new Parisian friend has to adjust them to reflect “the French way”), along with playful bag charms, including an Eiffel Tower keychain that prompts a couture designer to cast her out of his atelier and deem her a “ringarde” — a basic bitch.
Emily later tracks the designer down at the ballet, where she swaps her bag charm and beret for a classically elegant look, which Field explained was intended as a tribute to Audrey Hepburn. It helps that Collins is a dead ringer for the actress, and all she needs is a dramatic black gown and elbow-length gloves to carry the look.
Knowing the scene would be filmed at the Palais Garnier, the famed opera house that
‘Whether she’s going to a glamorous party, a weekend in the countryside or jogging in a Chanel T-shirt, each outfit is meticulously constructed’
also features in Funny Face, Field took a tip from the film, in which Hepburn wears a Cartier diamond necklace styled as a tiara. The effect is dazzling, the perfect finishing touch for a moment where Emily reclaims the word “ringarde”, telling the designer: “You think ringardes don’t respect designers. We worship designers so much that we spend all we’ve saved on a dumb accessory, just to feel like we’re somehow on your runway. You may mock us, but the truth is you need us.”
Her wardrobe may not strike many viewers as basic, but her bold pattern-mixing and love of labels set her apart from her refined French co-workers, earning her the office nickname ‘Le Plouc’ (the hick).
While Emily thinks nothing of wearing a head-to-toe hot pink outfit with coordinating knee socks to work, her achingly chic boss Sylvie favours minimal, block-colour ensembles by Roland Mouret, Rick Owens and Yohji Yamamoto. We see Emily click-clack along the cobbles in a parade of technicolour get-ups, as Sylvie breezes about in sleek jumpsuits or pencil skirts with perilously high slits.
As the show goes on, Emily starts to pick up influences from her French colleagues and friends, adopting some styling tricks, such as wearing monochrome outfits with a bright accent colour, and mirroring Sylvie’s houndstooth.
Whether she’s going to a glamorous party, a weekend in the countryside or merely jogging in a Chanel T-shirt, each outfit is meticulously constructed like a particularly decadent millefeuille, and by the time the 10 episodes are up, viewers will be left wanting more.
Critics may nitpick the details of its plot or its portrait of Paris, but Emily In Paris is an irresistible fashion fantasy guaranteed to make you swoon.