The actress is blithely living her best life in the new Skims campaign — and giving out ageless style lessons as she goes.
Let’s be as direct as the character herself has always been: the cameo was disappointing. Even by cameo standards, Samantha Jones’s much-anticipated appearance in the final episode
The scriptwriters might have consigned Samantha to the back of a car in the show, but in real life, she’s the star of a sexy new Skims campaign. Okay, it’s actually Kim Cattrall who is the star of a sexy new Skims campaign — but she is definitely channelling her alter ego. “How do I feel about Skims? Oh, you’d like to know, wouldn’t you? Freakin’ fabulous,” purrs Sam — sorry, Kim — in an accompanying video, giving a lascivious wink. And she does look fabulous, posing seductively in a succession of shapewear that clings to every curve.
It takes a special sort of confidence to make shapewear look appealing. In the lingerie drawer of life, a garment designed to hold and smooth is never going to surpass the sexiness of a push-up lace bra. So it speaks volumes about Cattrall’s appeal that she manages to sizzle.
It also speaks volumes about the marketing savvy of Skims’ co-founder, Kim Kardashian, who hasn’t built Skims into a $4 billion ($670 billion) brand in less than four years by accident. Cattrall has been paid to promote Skims because she’ll be catnip for sales. Who wouldn’t want to look like Kim in Skims’ $160 long black slip dress?
To quote Samantha Jones: “I am fifty f—ing-two and I will rock this dress. I will not be judged by you or society. I will wear whatever I want.”
Cattrall isn’t 52, of course — she’s 67. And, at the age of 67, she is proving to be just as unbothered by judgment as her alter ego. The Skims campaign is but one of a slew of recent high-profile appearances that prove Cattrall is at the very top of her game. The Liverpool-born actress is blithely living her best life – and giving out style lessons as she goes.
What lessons can we learn from Cattrall? How to rock a power suit, for one. At Paris Fashion Week in October, she graced the Balmain show (a favourite designer of hers) wearing a black crocodile-print leather jacket and matching pencil skirt, looking as fabulous as the surrounding coterie of celebrities and influencers that were a third of her age.
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Advertise with NZME.At the premiere of Emily in Paris, she gave a neat lesson in how to wear a trouser suit, teaming wide-legged black trousers with a double-breasted waistcoat, also by Balmain. Black isn’t always the most forgiving colour on older skin, but Cattrall’s judicious use of soft, natural makeup — barely-there foundation, minimal eyeliner, a flattering pink lip — ensured her skin looked radiant.
While she’s undoubtedly a fan of black for red-carpet events, Cattrall certainly isn’t afraid of colour. Attending the premiere of Happy Clothes, a film about the celebrated New York stylist Patricia Field, Cattrall dressed in homage to its title, in a vivid colour pop of purple, pink and blue. This time, her wide-legged trousers (something of a Cattrall trademark) were fuchsia-hued, teamed with a matching satin clutch and a purple sequined jacket. She definitely loves tailoring, but of the more characterful kind. Bland, she doesn’t do.
Her love of colour is echoed by her character Samantha’s — to the point that it can sometimes be hard to discern where Sam ends and Kim begins. Patricia Field would agree. She and Cattrall became firm friends over the six years (1998-2004) that Sex and the City was filmed, during which Field functioned as the show’s chief stylist and wardrobe consultant. “Colour was very important in her [Samantha’s] look. I never really did any neutrals,” Field told Elle magazine in August. “Kim’s personal style has elements of Samantha in it, but not 100 per cent,” she added. “She likes to get dressed up, but she also likes a casual moment as well.”
Now 82, Field has undoubtedly had an influence over Cattrall’s personal style, with the actress admitting in an interview earlier this year that she feels nervous about her choices whenever she is getting dressed to meet Field, and detailing how she felt delighted when the stylist complimented her on her choice of Vivienne Westwood.
For her unexpected cameo in And Just Like That…, it was to Field she turned for her scene-stealing look, a red dress teamed with a metallic silver trench coat that harkened back to the bold wardrobe of Samantha’s scene-stealing heyday. “I was very happy to work with Kim,” Field said. “She trusts me — it’s just smooth and lovely all the time.”
It should go without saying that you don’t have to be pushing 70 to take style lessons from Cattrall. Her joyful ebullience is an inspiration at any age. In a season where quiet luxury and stealth wealth still seems to have some designers (and therefore, the high street) in a pincer hold, Cattrall’s love of colour and quirk feels particularly appealing. One wonders whether her confidence comes from the fact that she became famous fairly late in life. While she was a respected and successful theatre actress long before Sex and the City, it took that show to make her a global household name.
A self-confessed “late bloomer”, she was 42 when the show first aired in 1998, and 53 when she walked away from the franchise in 2009, after making the second SATC film (and famously falling out with her co-star, Sarah Jessica Parker).
At 42, you’ve already made all the fashion mistakes you’re likely to make, and are left with the bravado of knowing what suits you. You also have the confidence to ignore the usual style diktats aimed at your age. Rare is the sixtysomething woman who’d venture out on the red carpet with her upper arms unconcealed by gauze or sleeve, but Cattrall doesn’t hesitate to bare hers in a strapless gown. And why not?
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Advertise with NZME.Like many fans, I’m sure, when I look at Kim Cattrall I don’t see “a 67-year-old”: I see a woman who is comfortable in her skin, confident in her choices and cheerfully unconcerned by her critics. Do I always like what she wears? No: but I always love the way she wears it.
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