Fendi, Gucci, Prada, Oh My!

Emphasis of Luxury and Designer Commodities 

Even though the women in Sex and the City support their own shopping habits- which symbolizes the financial autonomy of the modern woman- the show’s emphasis on specific designer labels reinforces the hegemonic idea that women are obsessively materialistic and propagates this fixation within the audience. The usefulness of product placement in television shows has been a prominent feature of the industry since 1990. However, Sex and the City has been critiqued for its overabundance of product placement, name-dropping, and label fetishism because of the ramifications these elements have on the identities of the characters. It is clear that the designer labels metonymically symbolize a high-class status for the protagonists of the show and it is even clearer that this symbiosis is deliberate on behalf of the producers of the show. Not only do the designers that are referenced on the show, such as Manolo Blahnik, Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Prada, represent a high-class status because of the actual price of the items, but it is also due to the traditional associations of the brands and how they market their names to symbolize wealth. This association with traditionally high-class brands “becomes a strategy by which HBO promotes itself as a status symbol to be coveted by the prosperous chic” (Scodari, 249).

For example, in the episode “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”, Carrie is impressed when she sees Big dressed in his finest attire while attending a church service with his mother. She comments, “And there he was, wearing Armani on a Sunday.” These thoughts are shared with the audience via voice-over, which is used throughout the series both to bring the audience into Carrie’s mind and to serve as an opportunity for Carrie to directly offer opinions to the audience that are meant to represent the general opinions of womankind. Contrary to the brand naming that occurs for the female characters, in this situation it is not Big who comments on the designer he is wearing himself, but rather, Carrie. This suggests that the label fetishism is something that preoccupies only the female character’s thoughts and is only a fetish that is appropriate for women.

Furthermore, the values that are propagated through product placement in the show are easily transferred to the audience because of the depth of information that is given when the product placement segments occur. Almost every time that a brand is named in the show, other information accompanies it; this may include a description of the item, the price of the item, a specific location to buy it, and even why buying this product is advantageous to other products.  Thus, “the clothing, handbags, and shoes (among other things) that [are] carried and worn often [become] ‘must have’ items. According to Akass and McCabe, the show has been known to start a ‘fashion stampede’” (Brzencheck, 7).

A clear example of this theory is in the episode 10 from Season 1. Miranda and Carrie are in a store, browsing for a pregnancy test when Miranda alerts Carrie, “Here there’s one on sale: half off.” Carrie retorts, “I just spent $395 on a pair of open-toed Gucci’s last week. This is not the place to be frugal” (“The Baby Shower”).  This example illustrates two points. First, we see that Carrie adds additional information to the “product” that she announces. She lets us know a description of the item and the price of the item. Further, although somewhat satirical in nature because of the comparison of importance between birth control products and shoes, this quote clearly shows the writers of Sex and the City attempt to duplicate a value system within the audience. The characters are there not only to show us the hottest brands and the fabulous life, they can teach us- in addition- what is important to splurge on and what is not. This is problematic in encouraging the ideas of independent and empowered womanhood because the things that the characters spend their money on are very superfluous and perpetuate materialistic values. By having such detailed product advertisement, the show helps the viewership become more materialistic and consumerist.