Get Charlotte's look from Sex and the City

PLOT SPOILERS!

Much has been written about the fashion legacy of Sex and the City’s influential costume designer, Patricia Field and its top star, Sarah Jessica Parker. But putting together a solid campaign to challenge this pair’s domination in the style stakes is Kristin Davis, better known as eternal optimist Charlotte York. The actress is starting her own fashion line with American clothing chain, Belk, with her collection scheduled to sell in 126 of its stores by autumn.

Celebrity fashion lines are everywhere at present, with the likes of Madonna, Kylie and even SJP having dipped their toe into this proverbial pond. And with Belk only present in America’s southern states, the extensive, international press coverage awarded to this news nugget is somewhat baffling. That is until you remember what we are dealing with here – the SATC effect, a fashion spell that is even stronger when cast by Park Avenue princess Charlotte York.

Charlotte cleverly blends a fashion cocktail of contradictions that allows her to be credible and authentic, whether primly playing be her rules of love or getting saucy with the Rabbit. Because of this everyone sees something to like or admire about Charlotte, with most men seemingly choosing her as their favourite among SATC’s women. She has a girl-next-door, all American quality that is comforting and familiar. A wholesome girliness that is unthreatening and safe, and a preppy conservatism that sees her neatly categorise everything in life – including herself. But ensuring that Charlotte isn’t dull or immature is a womanly sexiness, shown off by her glossy, brunette mane and hour-glass figure.

Charlotte’s style is flirty and feminine, classic and contemporary. However, for Field, the brains behind the ensembles, Charlotte’s clothes represent more than just what looks good. “When we started out [on the TV show], we dressed her as a classic Americana girl,” she says. “When she met Trey [her first husband], that style became more pronounced, and then when she married and became a housewife, it became the more casual version of that.”

Now, happily married to second husband, Harry and mother to adopted daughter, Lily, Charlotte in 2008 hasn’t experienced any drastic wardrobe changes. “When it came to dressing Charlotte, I was inspired by Jackie Kennedy,” reveals Field. “I wanted her to be less girly… assume more sophistication.”

This polished elegance is reflected in fewer flimsy cotton dresses and sugary pastel shades, and replaced with a bolder colour palette and more tailored clothes. “My silhouette is a bit more simple,” elaborates Davis, “a little less bows and flowers and things that she used to wear.” Charlotte’s fashion highlights include a strapless Salvatore Ferragamo dress (as worn to the auction), the tiered pink Oscar de la Renta maxi dress (as seen at the restaurant in Mexico) and the dramatic black Zac Posen bridesmaid gown, nicknamed onset ‘the black swan’.

With her classic style, she plays it safe with many established fashion houses such as Prada, Chanel and Valentino, but in true Patricia Field style, breaks out with a few interesting choices. These include the Chanel fluffy earmuffs when jogging in Central Park and a strapless, hot pink bathing suit by Eres.

Her morning ritual of what to wear is thrown a curve ball when she falls pregnant. Sporting a sizeable baby bump, the fashion parameters had to be changed with maternity clothes making their first big SATC splash since Miranda fell pregnant with Brady in season four. Charlotte’s maternity dresses are suitably coy and respectable, with high-necks and block patterns. Of note are two knee-length Oscar de la Rentas, one white with blue flowers, the other white with navy spots.

Davis has always been a very vocal supporter of her alter ego’s style, praising “her playful nature,” and so she eagerly fought to keep the clothes she wears onscreen. “It’s in our contracts that we get to keep our outfits, which is a fantastic thing,” she explains. “Except that for me, all of my outfits were samples. They were like, “Okay Kristin go upstairs and pick out the ones that you want”, and I went upstairs and there was nothing there. You know what was there? My running pants [by Fila], which I love, I wear them a lot in life, but I was like, “where are my clothes?”“

Happily, she didn’t go without completely. “I got all of the shoes. And then I got a beautiful Chanel bag because the wardrobe people felt terrible and called Chanel and were like Kristin doesn’t have any clothes, do you mind giving her this bag, it was so cute. And then I got a really cool dress from the tropical section, that yellow Biba, the very vacationy dress. So I did get some very choice pieces.”

Davis has admitted that her personal wardrobe will be the main inspiration for her forthcoming clothing line, so with these new SATC items taking up residence in the Davis household, fans want to know if this is their easy way to steal Charlotte’s style secrets. Davis is remaining tight-lipped on the subject (how very Charlotte-esque), though with rumours of the collection being “ultra-feminine”, Charlotte wannabes could definitely be in luck.