She might have histrionically dismissed squirrels as ‘just a rat with a cuter outfit’ but Carrie Bradshaw clearly has no such reservations when it comes to ‘flying rats’: pigeons.
Our first glimpse at what the And Just Like That season two wardrobe department has in store for us was... A pigeon bag. An AW22 JW Anderson 3D printed pigeon clutch, if you want to get technical about it (worn with a Converted Closet jumpsuit and Fendi Baguette anklet) – which you should, and we’re about to. It appeared in the second episode of the new series. Carrie opens it (i.e. lifts up its feathered wing) to reveal... A stick of gum! That's it!
Are we surprised? Not about the gum but about the fact that she wore a bag shaped like On the contrary, Bradshaw and birds have history. Anyone equipped with just a smidge of Sex and the City sartorial history at their disposal will know. Want to go deeper? Well lucky for you you’ve come to the right place. Allow your learned friend here to put her (still sadly unofficial, non-legally binding) PhD – Flying High? Avian Symbolism and Significance in the Life and Wardrobe of Carrie Bradshaw, 1998 – 2022 – to use.
1999: The Judith Leiber Swan Minaudière
Here the bird is a £4000+ proxy for what Bradshaw really wants: a relationship. She was so revolted by the Judith Leiber bag that Big buys her in season two that, naturally, she reacted by saying ‘I love you’. Not, as she points later at brunch ‘I love it’.
2000: The Stoner KFC
The bird as a symbol of arrested development. Of all the improbable and ridiculous moments in the Sex and the City canon, one of the most outlandish is this: when Carrie returns from a late night at Bungalow 8 to find Aidan asleep with a half-eaten bucket of KFC on his belly she doesn’t have any. No way, what person goes clubbing and doesn’t demolish any available junk food in their vicinity? I call BS. We also have evidence that she is a fan of the Colonel’s secret recipe. In 2000’s Hot Child in the City – high and with the munchies – she has a bucket of her own.
2000: The Get-No-Sleep Roosters
A foreshadowing of Bradshaw’s inability to sleep, her restless soul, and her apparent entitlement to tell NEW YORK CITY OF ALL PLACES to STFU as soon as she wants some shut-eye. The episode title, Cock-A-Doodle-Do is a quintessential example of the double-entendre ladened dialogue of the show.
2003: The Simudate Pigeon
It was dead as a dodo before it even started. What is a ‘simudate’ to Carrie (ahead of her first ‘official’ date with Berger) is a ‘real’ date to the poor soul whose time she feels at liberty to knowingly waste. Emphasising the idea that timing is everything (she was already invested in someone else) a pigeon lands on the head of the Man with the Stye.
2008: The Bridal Bird
Anyone who tells you it's good luck when a bird poops on your head has clearly never had it happen to them. Consider this moment proof that when a one actually attaches itself to your temple, trouble is in store. Truly the most poignant of all birds in Sex and the City is the one that she wears on her head when she is jilted at the altar by Big in the first film, accentuating her humiliation at that moment. The most terrifying woman-meets-bird moment since Tippi Hedren got acquainted with the seagulls.
2008: Another Birdy Bag
Oh well! Next! You can't keep an unflappable fashionista down for long. The wedding-that-wasn't didn’t stop Carrie indulging her appetite for avian accessories. Also in the first movie, a feathered Salvatore Ferragamo clutch.
2010: The Lame Duck
AKA the second film.
2021: The Bird That Never Made It
Spotted during filming of AJLT – a call back to wedding scene (nostalgia? Will she never learn?) - it didn't make the final cut.