Since arriving in London at the start of 2024, Sarah Jessica Parker – a woman who could sell Manolo Blahniks to a monk – has worn the same outfit almost every single day: cuffed jeans, fleece-lined booties and a dog-walking jacket. She will sometimes be photographed in a knitted beanie, and she will almost always emerge bare-faced with her hair scraped back into a severe ponytail. When most of Parker’s evenings have been spent performing in a simulacrum of a seventh-floor hotel suite at The Savoy Theatre – flitting between a series of evermore garish period costumes and ’60s wigs – the sparsity of her own wardrobe feels like an obvious return to self. She knows there is real anonymity in dressing like just about every other West End tourist, and that there is safety, too, in repetition.
“One day you’ll do something that just sticks,” the actor told me back in October. “It’s a small gesture that will make everyone think, ‘Yep, that’s her’. The streets are the most inspiring place for that reason, you see all these people and you might just want to take something from what they’re wearing.” Who would have thought that Sarah Jessica Parker – who is not, but will forever be associated with Carrie Bradshaw – might take fashion cues from the kind of person that sits top deck on a sightseeing bus?
Parker spent a large portion of that interview – where she was promoting a line of RoC Skincare products – speaking animatedly about the majesty of London. (She had, earlier that week, been spotted strolling around Manhattan with two University College London tote bags slung across each shoulder.) “This city is on fire,” she said. “It’s so awake! It’s amazing. There are so many spots to be, and to sit and to meet. And it’s so much more diverse than New York. To see a city where there is so much colour and variety mixing on the street for real? It’s unbelievable. It all feels so much more integrated than our city. Here, you can go to the National Theatre and see people of all nationalities in the audience.” That is perhaps true if the nationalities she observed were English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh, but the point remains the same: Sarah Jessica Parker could, if she wanted to, assume a convincing ambassadorship for London, enchanted by even the most unremarkable aspects of living in the capital. In 2019, she professed her adoration for an in-station branch of Timpsons and she has since described TfL as an “exquisite” system. “I want to be completely conversant,” she said at the Plaza Suite premiere. “I want to know Jubilee, Piccadilly, Northern. I want to know Edgware, Barnet!”
And so – on her 59th birthday – I couldn’t help but wonder if Sarah Jessica Parker would be celebrating in true London style? Here is a speculative itinerary of what the actor could get up to: she will wake up to views of the London Eye before hiring a Lime bike – as husband Matthew Broderick was photographed doing just a few weeks ago – to Finsbury Park in order to catch a glimpse of Banksy’s breathtaking new mural. Parker is, after all, a fan of guerilla street art, having uploaded this stunning image to Instagram, accompanied by an equally poetic caption. “Walking around. London. It’s nice seeing new things. Reading new things. Signs. Even directions. Finding our shops. Learning the Tube. The buses. Which one gets me where I need to go. On time.” She will then find herself, exhilarated, on the Victoria and Northern lines to Hampstead Heath, where she will spend most of her time hoisting a tumble-prone Broderick from the ground. A late-afternoon Guinness in the Gatehouse Pub – where locals have been left “star-struck” at this A-list couple’s unlikely patronage – will prove a balm. (On that note, the duo have sadly been left unsatisfied at just how early the capital’s kitchens close, despite dining with Joan Collins, which makes me think Sarah Jessica – or indeed, anyone – might be an appropriate replacement to the current £120,000-per-annum role of London’s Night Czar.)
That is because, over the past couple of months, SJP’s wide-eyed encounters with London – see: here, here and here – have provided a release from the so often miserable reality of living in a city where the average rent is £2,100 per month and the average salary £1,950. This is, after all, someone who uploads ambient videos of wind chimes to Instagram and is known to bend the knee when greeting strangers – which is not what the capital wants, but it is, perhaps, what it needs. (At this point, it is probably worth recognising that the concept of “the tube” will be a little more thrilling to a famous person than to someone who works late shifts in a hospital). So yes, London has a remarkable ability to bear down on the soul, but as Sarah Jessica will reiterate, “It’s the small, whimsical things that are often the most nurturing.” Tonight, for example, she will be slipping into a pair of knee-high boots, in search of “some champagne and merriment”. All this is to say: when Sarah Jessica packs her bags and returns home next month, I will be expecting her to upload a heartfelt goodbye to the capital – perhaps with a photo of a one-legged pigeon, or a sunset shot across the Heath – captioned with the ever-Instagrammable Samuel Johnson quote: “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford.” I hope she wins the Olivier.
