Patricia Field, the costume designer for Sex and the City, has been standing behind a glass counter full of rhinestone jewellery in her Bowery store talking about the power of sexuality, the potential for movies to move clothes and her unexpected windfall of success from dressing Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha.
Her half of the nearly two-hour conversation has been fuelled by an uninterrupted chain of cigarettes, each one lit without regard to bylaws.
Field spent almost 30 years on the fringes of the mainstream fashion industry - playing by her own rules in a little world populated by vinyl pants, leopard-print bustiers, glitter cummerbunds, tranny gear and club kid frippery - before the universe shifted and Field wound up at the centre of it.
"I've always been independent, and I like it that way. I do what I do. It's good for your mental health.
"As far as the fashion world, I was on the outside. But fashion designers were always in my store checking us out and looking for inspiration," Field says.
"I managed to stay around and put bread on the table."
Then the world went mad for Sex and the City and its star Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays Carrie Bradshaw, freelance writer and girl-about-town.
More specifically, the audience fell in love with Carrie's style, which ranged from Versace couture to a $189 nameplate necklace. Which really meant folks had fallen in love with Field.
"A certain respect developed for me in the fashion world," says Field, her voice gravelly with smoke and the brave swagger of a New York accent.
"I didn't change. Circumstances changed."
Designers began inviting Field to their fashion shows and putting her in the front row.
Translation? Please, please, please pick something from my collection for Carrie! Retailers stocked their stores with whatever frock or accessory they'd heard Field had eyed. Fashion students idolised her.
Before Sex and the City, Field was a retailer, a designer, an occasional costumier and a habitué of a New York night scene that was gender-bending and stereotype-busting.
Field still represents a version of New York that preceded the Disney takeover of Times Square.
Back in 2000, not long after midtown Manhattan became kiddie-friendly, Field was quoted in the Kansas City Star, sounding like the Pied Piper of juvenile delinquency: "I have all these 10-year-olds that come to my store; they all want low-cut, tight, sexy, shiny, glitzy. And I think that's great. ...
"How are you going to learn to deal with that [sexual] power unless you try it? Wearing a sequin tube top and heels is like going to class. You learn your lesson."
Field personifies what drives some folks to home-school their children. She is a popular-culture hedonist.
Field (66) soldiers on with her psychedelic windows that are half boho carnival and half red-light district - giving the erroneous impression that her customer base might consist of Woodstock hookers instead of the club kids, bargain hunters and dreamers who stubbornly believe style is a form of artistic and psychic expression.
The shop is filled with an eclectic mix of affordable fashion because Field believes people should be able to "buy something to wear without going to the bank to get a mortgage".
Her wares include a $230 white jersey cocktail dress with a feather-dusted hem and an elaborately gnarled and printed T-shirt for $160 that asks, "Whatever happened to Britney Spears?" The shirt was designed by a fellow called "Tom Tom", who also happens to work the counter and watches in amusement when, as he says, the "circus comes to town".
By that, he means the fans.
Although almost nothing in the neighbourhood but the nearby coffee shop opens before 11am, faces press against the glass doors of Field's shop soon after 10.
They come to pay homage to Carrie Bradshaw, who, thanks to Field, launched a laundry list of trends: those nameplate necklaces, giant flower corsages, Playboy bunny medallions, crystal-covered cellphones, vintage furs, Manolos, Jimmy Choos and so on.
"A lot of the people thought my store was Sex and the City. They didn't understand that I costumed a script," Field says. "Carrie's wardrobe of Oscar de la Renta and Lanvin is not here."
But Field carries a few iconic SATC pieces such as the nameplate necklaces. If there weren't some evidence of Carrie in this shop, there might be a riot.
Field has a long list of credits as a costume designer, including Spin City. She's won Emmys and was nominated for an Oscar for her work on The Devil Wears Prada.
But her renown is based on the years she spent crafting the wardrobe and clarifying the personalities of that quartet of single New York City friends.
Field's approach to dressing the characters in the film does not focus on assessing trends and then deciding who should wear what. In fact, she voices her relief that she has not been asked to reel off a top-10 list of must-haves.
Instead, she is a storyteller. When she began forming her game plan for the movie, she asked herself how the lead characters had changed over the four years that had elapsed since audiences last saw the quartet.
Charlotte, played by Kristin Davis, became an uptown mum. Her preppy style "begins to assume more sophistication". Field says. "I looked at Jackie Kennedy for inspiration."
Miranda has moved to Brooklyn, but "she's made some money", Field says. "I saw a picture of [actress Cynthia Nixon], and her hair had grown out.
"I thought she looked like a classic American Wasp. It looked good. Her hairdo gave me inspiration. So I said let's do a little Prada. But it could also be Michael Kors."
Samantha, who has moved to California with her boyfriend Smith, becomes a more intensely saturated version of herself.
As for Carrie, "she stood for the fashion end of the show. ... Her style was eclectic. It was rooted in the ballerina with Oscar de la Renta, the tutu.
What could time have done to her?" Field asked herself. "She became more sophisticated, but sexy."
Field also popularised the philosophy of mixing designer clothes with throwaway fashion.
"I grew up having things. I wasn't rich, but I wasn't poor. I grew up with that mix," says Field.
But Field is proudest of the relationship she helped foster between fashion and film, helping designers see the advantages of dressing movie characters.
"When you see Carrie and Samantha and Charlotte in their life, they're moving, animated people. They're not a model in a photo shoot," she says. - Robin Ghivan
