Sex and This City

By Xania Woodman

Thursday, May 22, 2008 | midnight

I had the honor of meeting Sex and the City columnist and author Candace Bushnell once. Preparing to interview her last summer as she keynoted a conference, I foolishly thought that speaking with the woman behind “Carrie Bradshaw” (Bushnell’s admitted alter ego) might feel something akin to meeting a long-lost older sister and recklessly fantasized that she might take me under her wing. It was not to be. Tipsy and bored, she tolerated (barely) the interview, hastily signed a book (after chiding me for not having already read her every tome) and stood still just long enough for a photo with me, a shell-shocked, now slightly disillusioned SATC fan.

But then “Carrie” she is not. Moreover, she confided to us at the conference, there is no “Miranda,” no “Samantha” and no “Charlotte.” Not specifically anyway. The ladies among whom my friends and I have assigned our own personalities (“Omigod, you’re soooo Samantha today!”) were in actuality, she said, an amalgam of many friends over many years. Ah, the miracle of television. And now of Hollywood—the Sex and the City movie opens next week.

For the four years I’ve been writing—three with this column—I’ve had to dodge carelessly tossed-about references to similarities between Sarah Jessica Parker’s “Carrie Bradshaw” and myself. Curly hair—check. Column set against the backdrop of a thrilling city—check. Closet full of shoes—92 pairs and counting! Don’t even ask about clothes. And then there’s the relationship foibles … big sigh.

Let’s just stick to the shoes. I bought a special pair just for the spate of SATC parties. Not quite having ascended to the Manolo-Choo-Louboutin level yet, I’m still rather pleased by my gold-heeled Guess black patent-leather peep-toe pumps.

I arrived at 6 p.m. to the Brass Lounge Downtown, where after checking in and donating two pairs of “gently used” heels (update—90 pairs and counting) to Soles4Souls.org, I collected my raffle ticket and joined the ladies who were already deeply engaged in a SATC trivia contest. Not a fan of Cosmos, I accept one of mixologist Trevor Gilstrap’s Metropolitans instead, a close but less-sweet cousin. A sweltering Sunday afternoon had been turned into a full-on bachelorette party with a media wall, a DJ, photographers and a sex-toy demo table adorably named “Samantha’s Closet.” I noted with a little satisfaction, as any SATC fan would, that it could also have been called “The Goodie Drawer.”

In pre-SATC-movie euphoria, the ladies walked it out on a genuine catwalk in a strut-off for a chance to win tickets to a preview screening of the film. Later that night, hundreds more ladies at Red Rock’s Cherry Pool lied, cheated and stole to claim just 100 gift bags containing a bottle of SJP’s Lovely perfume and two tickets to the screening.

“The sooner men realize that women do rule the world, it’ll be a lot better place to live,” said one highly evolved male. Meanwhile, the ladies—myself included—balanced as best we could with a cocktail in-hand, trying on samples from the Manolo Blahnik boutique at Wynn. Some 152 designers had their fashions incorporated into the SATC movie, Manolo of course being one of them. The boutique at Wynn—one of only two in North America—will host a sneak peak at the designs featured in the film on Thursday, May 29, from 6-9 p.m. with an afterparty at Blush (RSVP to 770-3424). Despite their being a half-size too small, the saucy pair of red patent-leather spectators had me feeling rather saucy myself.

Wynn isn’t the only one still rolling out the carpet for Carrie, et al. When the big day finally arrives, it will be celebrated at Brenden Theaters in the Palms by Blackbook702 in conjunction with Escada, Jimmy Choo, the Cupcakery and Las Vegas Vodka, with a private showing benefitting the Public Education Foundation ($55 per person, blackbook702.com).

As the last minutes of the show’s last episode flashed on the plasma screens at Brass, I doubted for a second if Carrie—or if indeed any of us—would finally get her heart’s desire. Now I’m sure that there will be 147 minutes of self-doubt, drama and witty Carrie-isms before that happens, but as for the rest of us, I couldn’t help but wonder.