Have our heroines lost the plot – film and fashion-wise?

Another day, another “sneak” sighting of the increasingly worrying Gang of Four. This week it was Sarah Jessica Parker in YSL. We’ve seen so many previews of Parker & Co (but mainly Parker) slaving away on the set of Sex and The City: the Movie in Oscar de la Renta, Prada, Ferragamo, Zac Posen, Dior and Marni over the past weeks that there cannot be a PR office in the world that hasn’t heard those thrilling words: “Patricia Field would like to borrow . . .”

Lovely as it undoubtedly is to sit around debating whether Parker should really be wearing thigh-high argyle socks and pretend that it’s a bona fide state-of-modern-womanhood-related issue, this constant haemorrhaging of photographs to the press must stop. This has nothing to do, by the way, with that misogynistic view that the SATC “girls” would be better off modelling hip replacements than hip designers and everything to do with the first law of storytelling: namely, keep some suspense up your (voluminous) sleeves. Back in its heyday, SATC made (minor) TV history by unashamedly making high fashion a running gag in the shows. The blanket coverage of what often appears to be the blankets covering Parker et al means that SATC’s script will need more twists and turns than a Lacroix ball dress if it is to live up to the media’s expectations.

Still, it is incredibly selfless of the team to demonstrate what not to wear next spring. Here’s a taster of the howlers so far beamed round the world from the set, and what they might portend plotwise:

— Over-the-knee-and-right-up-to-the-thigh socks: Carrie goes back to school and finally learns how to compose a nonrhetorical sentence.

— Crinolines: Charlotte joins the Amish.

— Flower-print bubble dresses worn over tube dresses: Big impregnates all four heroines with alien sperm.

— Corsages the size of satellite dishes: Carrie becomes a spy, joins M16 and has a lesbian affair with Judi Dench.

— Head-to-toe red, including belt, bag and the face of whoever came up with that godawful crimson suit: Kim Cattrall surreptitiously auditions on set for a role in Dallas, The Movie.

— Fruit prints the size of fruit bowls: Charlotte takes up dressmaking, stealing fabric from her Brazilian maid, Carmen Miranda.

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