We Finally Know Why Carrie Bradshaw Rewore Her Vivienne Westwood Wedding Dress in the “And Just Like That” Season 2 Premiere

While the cast of And Just Like That was shooting season two of the Sex and the City reboot in November 2022, Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) was photographed wearing her iconic Vivienne Westwood wedding dress. Since Parker first wore the gown during the Sex and the City movie in 2008 for her wedding to Mr. Big (played by Chris Noth)—before he stood her up at the altar, that is—fans were curious whether Carrie would be getting married again. Today, June 22, 2023, season two of the reboot began streaming, so we finally know why Carrie’s old wedding dress made a reappearance. 

During the episode, Carrie is getting ready to attend the Met Gala, which is themed “Veiled Beauty.” The designer of her original outfit, Smoke (played by Bethlehem Million), tells Carrie that he isn’t able to pull off the tailoring since two seamstresses came down with the stomach flu. At the last minute, Carrie turns to her trusty close filled with couture pieces as a backup plan. Carrie finds the forgotten gown in the back of her closet, and she decides to wear it for the event, along with a new cape that Smoke made. “I may have something,” Carrie tells Smoke in the episode. “I’ve only worn it once. It’s not the best memory.”

In an interview with People on June 22, 2023, Parker tells the outlet that the journey of securing the wedding dress, which was out of the country, was a tricky one. “We weren’t entirely sure we could get the dress back,” she admits. “It was in London and unearthing it was complicated—getting it through customs in time and then making sure, ‘Was this, in fact, the original dress?’ The color looked different.”

According to Parker, writer and director Michael Patrick King wanted the dress to feel different. “How would it become something else?” Parker asks. “How would we layer it and give it new life and have it feel modern and change the poetry that surrounded that dress from a lot of really painful but important memories that I don’t think Carrie wanted to let go of, especially given this loss?” In the movie, Carrie originally paired the dress with champagne heels and a dramatic veil. For season two of And Just Like That, Carrie gave it a pop of color with teal gloves, a teal cape, teal heels, and a birdcage veil. Just like the movie, Carrie kept the bird that she wore on top of her head, which she used as proof that she was committed to the marriage.

Although Parker was nervous to put on the gown that she first wore over a decade ago, she was thrilled it still fit. “It was really incredible and fun and thank goodness it fit!” she exclaims. “It was very special to have it back in our possession for a brief period and to figure out how it helped tell this story now.”

King explains that including the Vivienne Westwood gown in the episode was an exciting Easter egg for diehard fans and an important introduction for new viewers. “It must mean something for someone who has never seen the scene where Carrie is left at the altar,” King says. “So, you just have to create a story, like in that case, the Met Ball, which is named Veiled Beauty, which gets me to wedding veil, which gets to wedding gown, and then Carrie tells Smoke, ‘It wasn't the best memory.’ All you need to know is it was a bad moment that she's putting it on, and then everybody gets to enjoy the gown.”