The easiest way to emulate Carrie Bradshaw’s style might bt to pick up a vintage Fendi baguette, a pair or two of candy-colored Manolo Blahniks, and, maybe a $10 tutu. Keke Palmer, however, opted to reference the Sex and the City protagonist’s beloved style in a piece of prize vintage from the ’90s Paris runways.
Palmer showed off a multi-color bandage dress from Jean Paul Gaultier’s spring 1997 collection in photos shared to her Instagram. The dress was divided into three portions: an upper half done in bright yellow and dotted red, followed by the middle point with pure burgundy, and a green checkerboard skirt to finish.
Although Palmer didn’t mention her dress’s backstory, the comment section was quick to point out that a version of the piece had once been worn during season two of Sex and the City. “Wait wait wait you’re wearing the Carrie Bradshaw dress [from] the episode she tells Big I love you,” one user wrote. In the episode, Carrie gets frustrated by Big when he says that she’s “embarrassing” him during a stuffy party on the Upper East Side. The next morning, Big admits that he does, in fact, love Carrie. She’s wearing the same Gaultier dress from the previous evening.
The dress in question first debuted on runway legend Linda Evangelista in the late ’90s during Gaultier’s “Cyberbaba” show. The piece, which played on Gaultier’s trompe l’oeil prints, was shown in a more editorialized way with Evangelista donning a metallic cowboy hat, a crossbody purse, and dramatic eye makeup in 1995. The party dress would come out of the archives four years later when SATC stylist Patricia Field outfitted Carrie in a commercial version of the dress. Carrie’s dress features a smaller floral portion at the bust as opposed to the larger one that was sent down the runway.
Recently, Palmer and her stylist Molly Dickson have developed a knack for referencing vintage icons. The actor and comedian wore an archival Lagerfeld-era Chanel dress to the 2025 SAG Awards that Jaime Lee Curtis appeared in over five decades earlier. She then revived Christina Aguilera’s sheer and beaded Atelier Versace confection at the Oscars after parties earlier this month. Now, Palmer just pulled off channeling two blonde icons in one vintage look.
