Patricia Field is the Brains Behind Carrie Bradshaw’s Tutu
patricia field. Photo from FMD website.
Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City is one of the most fashionable TV show characters. Patricia Field put her eccentric looks together. She also styled the characters of The Devil wears Prada. Invited by Festival Mode & Design (FMD), the stylist sat down with Stéphane LeDuc, the commissioner and animator of FMD Conferences for an hour. The room was filled with young and older fashionistas.
“I get my inspiration from youngsters,” says Patricia who loves to interact with people and accepted FMD’s invitation for that purpose. She delivers powerful messages such as “Listening to people is very important instead of being the centre of attention.”
Patricia’s parents owned a dry cleaning company and her father was a tailor. She learned about the business world from her family, as they were all entrepreneurs, including aunts and uncles. She learned about making her own world, being independent and not relying on others. “You don’t really know what you learn in your childhood as you learn it,” she says about learning organically.
Patricia opened her store Patricia Field at the age of 24 in 1966. It was the greatest event in her life. “I always had a passion to be independent and fashion was easy,” she tells us about this happy contribution to the arts. She sees fashion as a decoration, but also showing intellect and observation. “Apparel is covering your body while fashion is an art,” she adds.
Patricia entered the movie business by recommendation of a friend, fashion brand consultant Candy Pratts Price. She thought it was easy to do and it paid well. Sex and the City was the second greatest event in her life. She had met Sarah Jessica Parker before on the set of a movie in Los Angeles. “You have to know somebody to dress somebody,” she explains about the importance of knowing who you are dressing, as the job of the costume designer is to support characters. A writer of the show once told her “the clothes are overpowering the scripts” and she told him to “write better scripts.” The room filled with laughter from everyone.
Patricia loves the quick pace of TV shows where there is no space for unimportant things. An episode has to be delivered week after week, unlike a movie set. “You have to do what you enjoy, otherwise you are wasting time of your life,” she says. “Being happy is when I’m creative or having fun,” she adds, “You can’t make beauty from suffering.”
Patricia gladly answered questions from the audience.
About trends, she says: “I don’t like all trends, they start adorable, grow and become ugly.” She believes fabrics of the future will be synthetic because they’ll be molded to people’s bodies.
About Carrie from Sex and the City: “Carrie raised a consciousness that women can mix and match.”
Her fashion icon is Cleopatra and she believes modernization will live with tradition in the future of fashion.
About her numerous interviews: “I respect professional journalists.”
Her last memorable words: “If you’re not happy, then no one around you will be happy,” and “You’ll never have a success if you don’t try.”
