This year’s Forces of Fashion, taking place on October 16, is dedicated to the art, drama, and influence of the runway throughout history. In honor of that, Vogue editors are sharing their favorite fictional fashion shows that have appeared in movies and television shows throughout the years.
I have, thankfully, never found myself in the position where I’m asked to walk in a fashion show wearing itty-bitty Dolce & Gabbana panties, sandwiched between actual models. But one Carrie Bradshaw sure has.
In season four episode two, “The Real Me,” Carrie agrees to walk for her friend’s runway show, which cast a mixture of models and “normals.” (Nowadays, nontraditional casting, even—gasp—writers, is becoming the norm. The Cut’s revered fashion critic Cathy Horyn was among those who walked for Demna’s spring 2024 collection for Balenciaga.) While Carrie was rightfully dubious, she was eventually swayed by the promise of free clothes and some light peer pressure. A woman after my own heart.
In true SATC fashion, Carrie is set up for the perfect storm: the audience is filled with a mixture of friends, industry peers, and her newest paramour—a fashion photographer. That, plus a last-minute wardrobe change, some disastrously high heels, and the knowledge of Heidi Klum walking right behind her set our girl up for the inevitable: she trips. Or, as Stanford Blatch put it: “Oh my God, she’s fashion roadkill!”
But worry not, reader! Carrie rolls with the punches to the tune of “Got To Be Real” by Cheryl Lynn. “I had a choice: I could slink off the runway and let my inner model die of shame, or I could pick myself up, flaws and all, and finish,” she monologues. “And that’s just what I did. Because when real people fall down in life, they get right back up and keep on walking.”
I have a few contradictory feelings about Carrie’s fall. On the one hand, it’s sweet to see that Carrie’s recovery inspires her friends to be brave. Miranda confronts a guy who ghosted her; Samantha embraces her body; Charlotte finally rakes a mirror to her vulva). But on the other, there’s a sense of schadenfreude that I also get from watching Girls and Veep. No matter the kind of day I’m having, they’re almost guaranteed to be having a worse one.