Sarah Jessica Parker Has Always Gone Big at the Ballet

Not long before Carrie Bradshaw purchased an haute couture ball gown from Valentino’s spring 2019 collection to dump Mr Big’s ashes into the Seine, Sarah Jessica Parker was posing at the 2019 New York City Ballet Fashion Gala in a Pierpaolo-pink ball gown of Zac Posen’s making. (The designer was costuming a production of Lauren Lovette’s “The Shaded Line.”)

Sarah Jessica Parker at the New York City Ballet 2004 spring gala.

Robin Platzer

Sarah Jessica Parker at the New York City Ballet 2012 autumn gala.

Charles Eshelman

Sarah Jessica Parker at the New York City Ballet 2018 autumn gala.

WWD/Getty Images

Sarah Jessica Parker at the New York City Ballet 2019 autumn gala.

Monica Schipper

With the exception perhaps of the Met Gala, these red carpets are where SJP comes to flex her fashion capital. Think: the tiered Oscar de la Renta midi-dress for the 2004 spring gala; the caped Valentino confection for 2012’s autumn gala; the Giles Deacon couture and ruby-red slippers of 2018; and the flared Carolina Herrera gown she wore to last year’s event, where she reportedly serenaded a packed house at the David Koch Theatre with Marvin Hamlisch’s “At the Ballet.”

Sarah Jessica Parker at the New York City Ballet 2024 autumn gala.

James Devaney

The actress yesterday evening returned to the step-and-repeat in an off-the-shoulder Oscar De La Renta bouffant, constructed from layers upon layers of tulle and airbrushed with metallic blooms—Aleksandr Petrovsky be damned. It was Bradshaw’s erstwhile Russian fling who first gifted her an Oscar de la Renta dress to wear to the ballet in season six of Sex and The City. She fainted because he was being too romantic and they instead went to McDonalds. There were fewer theatrics last night.