‘And Just Like That...’ Vs ‘Glamorous’, Carrie Bradshaw Vs Madolyn Addison: Who Wore It Best?

Sex and the City alumni go head to head.

To quote directly from a half-naked Miranda as she wriggles into a leather sex harness: This is a lot of work for something I don’t even know if I’m philosophically or spiritually into.

I’ve been watching television for an entire day. When I close my eyes, all I see is shoes. And Miranda. What the f*** have they done to Miranda?

Late last month, Netflix released season two of its Sex and the City sequel, And Just Like That.... On exactly the same day, Neon dropped Glamorous, the new show from Kim Cattrall — aka Samantha — who infamously refused to rejoin her castmates when they regrouped almost 20 years after SATC ended.

Sex and the City was a weekly fixture throughout my 30s. I was living in suburban Christchurch when my mother came to stay and I couldn’t stop talking about this incredibly funny and empowering new television show I’d discovered. I poured the sav blanc and we sat down to watch. Approximately 37 hours later, when the credits finally and mercifully rolled on the Rabbit vibrator episode, I wondered if I’d ever look my mother in the eyes again. And then I left my long-term relationship, moved into a tiny inner-city flat on my own and had rampant and interesting sex. Because I could.

That show about four women figuring themselves out in New York helped set my generation apart from my mother’s. Newer generations have, rightly, pointed out its shortcomings — regressive stereotypes of class, race and gender, the ridiculously relentless pursuit of A Husband, the snide slut-shaming and transgender belittling, and the fact that no columnist could ever actually afford that many shoes, bags or brunches.

Sometimes, when I read these criticisms, I roll my eyes. Television is not meant to be REAL. And now, a full day into this marathon of heels, hats and gratuitously referenced handbags, I am even more convinced — the lesser the real, the better the reel.

It’s 8am on the Glamorous alarm clock and Marco Mejia, gender non-conforming high school graduate, is a-woke.

“Desperate to smash that snooze button? Is the struggle to get grown-up realer than real? Do you have literally no idea what you’re going to do with your life?” Marco is straight to camera and cannot help you with any of that. Because Marco is going to get up and get (even more) beautiful in a made-for (and from) social media montage.

It’s 10.18pm on the And Just Like That... alarm clock and Carrie Bradshaw, widowed podcaster, is going to bed. So are all of her friends in a montage featuring more satin nightwear than MTV circa 1984. Cut to a slab of raw meat.

“Why do you like cooking shows?” Carrie asks the man in her bed who is now, inexplicably, on his laptop watching someone salt a steak. Later, Carrie will attempt to poach eggs. She has not previously learned this skill because, “I was 30 — too busy to slow my roll for a three-minute egg.”

Carrie let life get in the way of her eggs. Food porn is the new porn. And my head hurts from the sledgehammer-subtle semantics. I miss Samantha.

Kim Cattrall’s newest incarnation is cosmetics queen Madolyn Addison. We see her first (surprise!) at the makeup counter. Marco is sent to sell and Cattrall’s soft focus slow turn is a show stopper. She wears Saint Laurent black cat eye sunglasses, a red dress, red fingerless leather gloves and a red boater, titled to the right.

Meanwhile, over on the Upper East Side, Charlotte and Carrie are walking Richard Burton (the British bulldog, not the Welsh baritone). Charlotte carries a leash adorned with a teeny Burberry vintage check barrel bag; Carrie wears library books, a vintage 1980s wedding dress turned jumpsuit and a straw boater, tilted to the left.

“I appreciate Kim’s Carmen Sandiego get up, and its ridiculousness,” says Dan Ahwa, Viva’s creative and fashion director. “But I’m going to have to maybe say Carrie’s White Sunday look with the library books. It has a very charming quality about it, maybe because it’s a straw boater, and I like the black trims on it, and it taps into an Edwardian summertime look which is always great.”

Emma Gleason, premium magazines commercial editor, concurs: “Very different looks, both are a bit costume-y, but such is the nature of these shows. I feel like SJP’s was executed better. More subtlety, finesse, and a more interesting proportion to the hat. The whole look is prim, which in some ways is very Carrie, especially these days, while still being a bit kooky — also very Carrie. Kim’s accessories let her hat down.”

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I can’t help but read Marco’s monogrammed “M” kilt-pin as a nod to the famous “Carrie” necklace and is a hot pink scrunchie a dig at Carrie’s 2003 disdain? In fact, these are two very different shows. Almost every Glamorous character is young and gay and visibly non-white. Marco wears the pants AND the stilettos AND the stilettoed sneakers. Sample zinger: “Girl, if I need kitten heels to do my job, I’m not doing my job.”

On Glamorous, the bathrooms are unisex, the first assistant wears Zara and a gondola is not just a boat in Italy. Switch your streaming service and Charlotte’s eldest is declaring “I won’t be upholding the patriarchal and heteronormative standards of beauty” as she helps cinch her mother into a look one international fashion bible will accurately describe as “almost traumatising”.

Ahwa: “I can’t stop watching it, even though I really dislike the writing when you compare it to the original series. That felt more progressive than this. It’s almost like they’ve regressed in the way they think about life. Everything is obvious and explicitly woke. There’s a sort of patronising box-ticking. Carrie is almost prudish . . . there’s no Samantha egging everybody on.”

Gleason: “It’s trying too hard to be an after-school special. They should just be out-of-touch white women in New York. That’s who they were, probably still are, and in a way, it would allow for more authentic critique. The message would just come across a lot clearer if they were just kind of prejudiced like they used to be. Or the showrunners could have given them the grace to evolve, but handle it with more subtlety, and not force it into every scene. In the original, they were problematic women and it was a problematic time, but they’ve now over-corrected.”

Applaud the moment soft-bellied middle-aged female bodies finally get the matter-of-fact treatment from television, but also know you will never unsee Miranda slithering out of a sensory deprivation tank. Even more shocking? The outfit she was wearing ahead of that.

Gleason: “I feel like they’ve completely rewritten her character and I’m not happy. She’s not a woman who wears wedge espadrilles. Yes, she’s gotten older and her life has changed, but she was a corporate lawyer and she wore black Prada suits and was acerbic and sarcastic and a bit mean. She should be wearing Chistophe Lemaire and brands like that, rather than floral frocks.”

For the record, Glamorous also does derriere. Parker’s nude gym-toned butt is cute — but also as cliched — as a cupcake. And that, perhaps, sums up the show. Episode one is a sheer confection. Comically camp, pink and sparkly and blessed with some terrific one-liners. Filtered light bounces off every surface and the mood is optimistic.

Carrie’s New York feels like a different city. Older and more serious. She reads Joan Didion; Samantha’s bookshelf is stacked with The Catwalk Series — Dior, Versace, Chanel, et al. On Glamorous, Marco slings a tote emblazoned with a unicorn. Carrie and contemporaries use their handbags as shields; their purses are a product placement that demand their own script.

“Oh thank you,” trills Carrie, as the waitperson brings out a small table for her bag. “My purse was EXHAUSTED.”

So was this viewer.

And Just Like That… season two is streaming now on Neon and Sky Go; Glamorous is streaming now on Neon.