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Patricia Field is like the fairy godmother of every capricious, madly-dressed fashionista on the planet.  She is legendary in scope, her name falling in alongside the likes of Betsey Johnson & Vivienne Westwood when it comes to women who do it their way & succeed.
Born & raised in New York City, she has been a Manhattan icon since the late 1970’s, when she started her own line of clothing & accessories for club kids, ravers & other wild personalities.  However, she started to really cement her place on the international scene when she began work on the now legendary Sex & The City. While she worked alongside other stylists, one of them long-term girlfriend Rebecca Weinberg, Field was always at the helm, pointing the way. Her adventurous, creative & fun way of looking at clothing & how we use it to express ourselves suddenly had a worldwide audience & a cult following. As the show became more & more popular, she took bigger sartorial risks, making enormous flowers, a mix of high- & low-end, & a super-colorful palette much more accessible, exciting & desirable.

Before dressing Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte & Miranda turned her into a household name, Field owned a boutique in Soho called Hotel Venus. Staffed by drag queens & booty-short-wearin’ mamas, the whole idea was to encourage people to dress up & really enjoy clothing. Years later, the shop was renamed to straight-up Patricia Field & moved to the Bowery, but still with the same mission statement. Diamante-encrusted brass knuckles sit on a shelf alongside sequined pants, a totally mad wig salon resides downstairs & there are enough rhinestones to thrill even the most discerning magpie.
Field’s most well-known work — other than the Sex & The City franchise — was in the movie adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s book The Devil Wears Prada, which detailed the author’s allegedly horrifying time working with Anna Wintour at Vogue. The styling on Devil was immaculate & quite different to SATC, proving that Field has the vision & the panache to style anyone for any occasion.
What’s made her so successful? As well as a lot of hard work & gallons of talent, there’s also a bit of being-in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time. While a lesser stylist working on SATC wouldn’t have made as much of an impact, there’s no denying that being able to capture millions of eyeballs every week was a huge coup & boost to her career. The best thing about her, however, is her refusal to rest on her laurels.  She is continually pushing boundaries & trying new things. Of her success in the world of film & television, she says, “I never took it for granted & I sustained my business throughout.  There is a certain truth about retail. If you listen to the customers, they will tell you.”

Words by Gala Darling

3.00 (16 votes)

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