Mia Freedman Tuesday 10 February 2009 12:10pm

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Oh it’s all about handwriting-with-a-thick-texta on the cover of fashion magazines. Which is good news because that’s about all most of us can afford to buy these days. I fret for all mags in these tough, internet-happy, cash-sad times, let alone ridiculous ones whose ethos is based on the idea that anyone would want to spend $2000 on a handbag.

Let’s take a look at the accompanying interview….by ex-Aussie (I offered her a job once) Laura Brown (she didn’t take it, choosing to go live in NYC instead, can’t imagine why….). Like most SJP interviews, it’s pretty dull. She’s a very safe subject. A pro. Not at all candid. But here are the best bits…..

“The feeling of fashion is something Sarah Jessica understands
implicitly. “I don’t have the Carrie Bradshaw passion and devotion to
it, but I would much prefer that life would allow for a beautiful shoe
all day long.” She’ll readily acknowledge the transcendent power of a
dress. “To stand in Mr. de la Renta’s atelier and have him build a
dress on you, that is amazing. And honestly, it’s a great honor to be
able to borrow something that weighs 40 pounds and requires three
people to help you walk.” How do you wear something that weighs 40
pounds? “Oh,” she replies, “you just do.”

Carrie Bradshaw took Sarah Jessica’s style into another solar
system. “I got to wear such incredible things, and you make such
mistakes and there’s such hits and great triumphs and there’s
incredible wrong, wrong, wrong.” She scrunches her face. “But it’s so
much fun.” Offscreen, the green feathered Philip Treacy hat she wore to
the London premiere of SATC? “The hat heard round the world,”
she sighs. The so-fashion-it-hurts Balmain dress she wore to the New
York City Ballet last fall? “That dress was really good. I love what
[designer Christophe Decarnin] is doing. It’s kind of ’80s, but it’s
superfitted and tailored. I can’t wear all that stuff, I’m too old, but
with the jacket shoulder he did…he’s kind of the male version of
L’Wren Scott right now.”

Another designer crush Sarah Jessica has — in perpetuity — is
Alexander McQueen. She wore a slim black McQueen sheath, printed with a
thin plume of cigarette smoke, to an SATC event in New York.
“He’s incredible. I actually had to cut myself out of that dress that
night. My husband was out of town, so I was alone when I got home, and
I couldn’t unzip it. So,” she says, wincing, “I got out the scissors.”

Lest anyone think that these frocks all reside smugly in a fashion
Batcave, think again. “Friends are readily disappointed by the size of
my closet. And I thought it was big!” Her current favorite things are a
Chanel patchwork handbag and a pair of Maison Martin Margiela boots
that she’s had for years. What can’t she live without? “My son! My
husband! Food! Oh, fashion? I don’t know. A good bra?”

As for the men in the house, she dresses “the little one, not the
big one. Matthew has a nice eye. He’s the last person I know who still
wears a tie.” If she were to renew her wedding vows with Broderick,
Sarah Jessica, who famously wore black on her wedding day, would choose
white. “I’m not kidding. White it up. I’d wear a beautiful, proper
wedding dress, like I should have worn on the day. James Wilkie’s
teacher is getting married, and he said, ‘Do you think she will be
wearing black?’ I said, ‘No! I can almost assure you.’ Then he said,
‘Do you still regret it?’ and I said, ‘Yes, I still regret it.’”

James, who used to hate it when Mom got dressed up because that
meant she was leaving the house, has reconciled himself to the
occasional glamour situation. “Now, if I would dress up in Legos,”
Sarah Jessica explains, “he would be very interested.”

Maybe Carrie Bradshaw would have worn a Lego skirt, but in these
recessionary times, what would our heroine do? “She would probably end
up in a hospital,” Sarah Jessica says with a laugh. “Perhaps she would
go back to her ’80s stuff and start bringing it back out.” She
characterizes the recession as “very scary. I know so many people who
have lost jobs, are losing jobs, husbands who have lost jobs. I can’t
imagine going shopping.”

Sarah Jessica has always had her “head screwed on.” She doesn’t
obsess about aging, either. “It’s a real crucible because you feel
daunted by your peers who somehow get younger and younger. People older
than me have fewer lines than I do. And no, you’re not supposed to talk
about it; you’re supposed to admire the fact that they look 22 even
though they’re 58.”

It’s hard to believe, when one is sitting with SJP, that she has
been acting for 35 years. It has earned her whimsy and wisdom in equal
measure. “I can’t imagine being 22 today and being thrust into public
life,” she observes. “I wouldn’t have ended up off the rails, but I
wouldn’t have been able to handle it the way that I’m able to today.”

If you want to read the whole thing (oops, was that a yawn?), you can, here….