And Just Like That production designer Miguel Lopez-Castillo knew of a superfan who was so obsessed with recreating Carrie Bradshaw’s original apartment that he meticulously tracked down every lamp, every table, every piece of set dressing to replicate it in his own space. Lopez-Castillo remembers him well: “He would ask me about the bedding, always polite, very nice, like super obsessive,” he tells us. “And I feel really sorry for him to be honest.”
What the superfan didn’t know—what none of us knew when And Just Like That premiered—was that Carrie’s time in her old beloved brownstone was fleeting.
At the start of AJLT’s third season, Carrie moved into a glittering townhouse right on Gramercy Park, leaving the storied apartment that housed her through six seasons of Sex and the City, two films, and two seasons of the reboot. The reaction to Carrie’s new place has been decidedly mixed. Some fans are embracing the change; others have been vocal about their disappointment. But according to the show’s design team, the move was always inevitable.
“I know people are extremely attached to the old apartment,” Lopez-Castillo tells ELLE Decor. In many ways, losing the apartment was like killing off a character. But, in filming the reboot, set 12 years after the end of the second movie, the creative team faced a fundamental storytelling challenge and needed to shift Carrie’s environment. Lopez-Castillo says, “Sarah Jessica and the rest of the cast, had to really deal with the realities of their ages and their lifestyle. [Carrie] was so embedded with Big’s lifestyle during the second movie and the start of the first season of this show.”
The Gramercy townhouse, in other words, shows that Carrie is evolving. Set decorator Karin Wiesel Holmes, who worked on Sex and the City starting in season two, feels the emotional weight of the transition: «Of course, I feel nostalgia for Carrie’s apartment and all of the experiences that she went through there.»
But, she says, «It gave me as a decorator the opportunity to show growth through the lens of Carrie from where she was until now and where she’s going.»
However, the designers didn’t want to abandon everything fans loved about the original space. «We tried very hard to have touchstones of the old apartment come with her to the new set,» Wiesel Holmes says, «whether it be in the layout of, say, the closet or in bringing certain pieces into the apartment.»
Carrie’s old furniture is still with her—Wiesel Holmes noted that the Calvin Klein bamboo flower bedding from Carrie’s original apartment ends up in the guest room Miranda stays in. Carrie’s original ottoman that lived in her closet in her old apartment made the move, as did the rug in her old apartment that is now in her closet.
«We tried to be conscious of what one would do realistically,” Wiesel Holmes says. “Take what they have and layer the new place with meaningful objects from the past.”
But fans still disappointed about the loss of the old apartment may be missing that this new phase of Carrie’s life is building toward something bigger. Lopez-Castillo hints at the larger arc when he describes what the townhouse represents for Carrie.
«She’s really finding a new way in the world that is separate from any relationship,” he says. “As you will see at the end of the season, there’s a big statement about that.”
The set designers know you miss Carrie’s old apartment because they miss it too. But they also know something else: sometimes the most necessary changes are the ones that feel the most disorienting at first. The superfan with his perfect replica represents all of us trying to freeze a character in amber, to keep her forever in that cozy space where she once belonged.
Julia Cancilla is the engagement editor (and resident witch) at ELLE Decor, where she oversees the brand’s social media platforms, covers design trends and culture, and writes the monthly ELLE Decoroscope column. Julia built her background at Inked magazine, where she grew their social media audiences by two million and penned feature articles focusing on pop culture, art, and lifestyle.
