And Just Like That… The Documentary provides fans with behind-the-scenes peek into the making of the 10-episode revival series. While it highlights the creative process behind many departments involved in the HBO series, showrunner Michael Patrick King and costume designer Molly Rogers steal the show. Or should we say, King steals one of Carrie’s beloved hats from a scene…
A self-proclaimed lover of hats, Rogers explained in the HBO doc that her adoration for eye-popping millinery has gotten her in trouble with lighting directors, camera people, and King, himself in the past. But with Carrie Bradshaw’s long history of loving unexpected headwear, Rogers couldn’t let the character down. As the documentary detailed though, there was one hat in particular that caused tension on set.
In speaking about King, Rogers confided, “He’s going to say he didn’t say this, but he did. He said, ‘What do you get when you add an ‘e’ to hat?'” After bursting out in laughter Rogers continued, “He’s a hat hater.”
After Sarah Jessica Parker spotted a Chez Sarah wide-brim straw hat during fittings that Rogers and fellow costume designer Danny Santiago secured, she knew Carrie needed to give it a moment in the series. They decided to pair it with the season finale Oscar de la Renta Magnolia dress Carrie wears to Jackie’s surprise wedding and throughout a dream sequence.
Explaining her fascination with the hat Parker said, “I just think it’s so weird and messy — it’s a wreck and it’s beautiful and it’s dangling death.” The documentary showed Parker’s longtime hairstylist Serge Normant hair-spraying the lace detailing to the brim, right before Parker went out to film one part of the dream sequence in Paris.
“I was like, ‘This is a bad situation,’ because now Sarah Jessica loves the hat. As she should. It was a phenomenal look — for one scene, but not for many. So now I have to become the studio head. I have to become the monster, the guy who slams the door on the soufflé- pff!” explained King who nixed the accessory.
“The idea that I had to take that hat off her was really uncomfortable. It was bad,” he said.
Rogers, in her typical humor, wrote a poem about the creative snag. “‘Where is his body,’ they ask me, but I will never tell. It’s under Carrie’s closet until it starts to smell. It’s fun at the wrap party, but no one can find MPK. I’m at the bar toasting. ‘Why couldn’t he let that hat stay?’ I buried him with his favorite thing. I’ve really said my piece. I bury him with a hat from France. I’m sure he’ll rest in peace.”
After reading the original poem to King after the Parisian hat-gate, Rogers explained that the creator laughed hysterically.
The documentary shows that they ended up filming the sequence without the hat, which caused tension between Parker and King, but in the end, she still looked fabulous in her Oscar de la Renta creation.
