And Just Like That... Season 2, Episodes 1 & 2 Fashion Recap: Meet Me at the Met

The season opens with a montage reintroduction to the leading ladies as they each embark on sexy evenings with their respective partners. Miranda appears a more laid-back, West Coast version of herself, joining Che for a skinny dip in the pool. Before she ditches her clothes, though, we get a look at the multicolored halter neck-dress she’s wearing—a clear indication that L.A. has had an effect on her usual approach to fashion.

Back in New York, Carrie is engaging in casual sex with her podcast producer, her first outing of the kind since Big’s death last season. She and Charlotte walk Richard Burton through the street in their contrasting looks. Carrie wears a white, flowy jumpsuit upcycled from a 1980s wedding dress. In last year’s post-season documentary, it was revealed that the hat topping off the look was actually supposed to be featured in season one, but Michael Patrick King nixed it at the last minute (much to Parker’s protests). Luckily, it was able to make an appearance in the season premiere. Carrie finished off the look with vintage Vivienne Westwood heels and a Thom Browne pre-fall 2022 carpet bag.

And while Carrie is in all white, Charlotte brings the color in a Samantha Sung knee-length dress, looking ladylike as ever with her Burberry doggy bag.

Che might have their own sitcom pilot named after them, but that doesn’t mean all is going well in Los Angeles. The comedian isn’t pleased with the creative direction of their show, Che Pasa, specifically the blue streak and eccentric blazer the show writer is pushing them to wear on set.

Charlotte’s equestrian-esque Met Gala look may be almost ready, but the issue of her date is still very much unresolved. After returning home from her fitting, Charlotte’s children let her know that her husband, Harry, thinks he’s going to be her date to the Met, when Charlotte was planning on taking Anthony. “I never went to my prom, you know,” Harry says while showing off his top hat. “Because I had Epstein–Barr that whole year.”

It took 20 minutes to reach the first ladies’ lunch of the episode, but we finally get there, as Seema, Charlotte, Carrie, and Anthony discuss the impeding Met Gala while dining at a white-tablecloth restaurant that provides stools for the guests’ handbags. “Oh, thank you, my bag was exhausted,” Carrie says while placing her bejeweled purse down, the perfect match for her deep blue pussy bow blouse. Charlotte’s large white Fendi Peekaboo, meanwhile, pairs nicely with her own houndstooth pussy bow top, while Seema rounds out the group with a plastic Jimmy Choo tote.

While Carrie originally tasks Jackie’s wife Smoke, an up-and-coming designer, to create her Met Gala dress, a last-minute seamstress emergency leaves Carrie without a gown just moments before the event. Luckily, she has an alternative option to go with the teal cape Smoke designed for her—the Vivienne Westwood wedding gown and bird topper she famously wore on the day Big left her at the alter.

“[Michael Patrick King] knew he wanted Carrie to repurpose the wedding gown,” Danny Santiago, the show’s co-costume designer, tells W. “Our challenge was figuring out how to mesh together what Smoke was making with the Westwood dress so Carrie could throw something together last minute, but still look as incredible as it did when she walks out the door.” In the end, the color of the dress, cape, and gloves match the headpiece perfectly, allowing Carrie to “repurpose [her] pain.”

Apparently, when Charlotte heard the Met Gala theme was “Veiled Beauty,” her mind went to the Victorian era. “MPK saw her in something equestrian, and we thought we’d modernize it by putting her in the latex corset, gloves, and the patent boots,” Santiago says. The hat, meanwhile, is a Stephen Jones creation, originally designed for a John Galliano show, which Jones sent to the AJLT set for use.

“We went to the Valentino couture show back in July and that look was presented in a different color,” Santiago recalls. “When we were thinking about what [Lisa Todd Wexley] would wear to the Met, we were like, ‘Oh my god, that Valentino with the beautiful feather headpiece would be so incredible.’” The Valentino team made a custom dress for the show in a striking shade of red. “They extended the train and it ended up being 10 or 12 feet long. So when Lisa and [Herbert] are crossing the street, there’s that beautiful movement to the fabric.”

And that leaves Seema, who decides to attend the event at the last minute after ditching a lunch with the guy she’s seeing and his ex-wife. Luckily, Seema wastes no time and quickly changes into her draped bronze dress, which Santiago and Rogers found at the Balmain outlet at Sawgrass Mills in Florida. “We didn’t know exactly what we were going to use it for, we just thought it was an amazing dress,” Santiago says. In the end, it’s the perfect piece for Seema to wear to the Met Gala, and though it may not really fit the veiled theme, she’s never one to play by the rules.

Nothing dampens one’s shine quite like some hard truths, which is exactly what Seema gets when she walks into her tried-and-true beauty salon only for her hairdresser to tell her she’s too picky when it comes to men. Luckily, Seema’s cheetah print Sergio Hudson suit and Fendi bag looks just as good leaving as it does entering, and she storms out of the salon after letting the stylist know, “I pay you to blow me, not shrink me.”

Not everyone is a fan of Lisa’s pattern-clashing look. Herbert’s mom lets her feelings be known right as she steps into the Wexley apartment for a visit. “I see you just returned from your matinee performance in The Lion King,” she says. Maybe Mother Wexley would have liked the look more if she knew it was Altuzarra and Dries Van Noten.

Charlotte is aghast to find that her daughter, Lily, sold her clothes on the Real Deal (“It’s like the Real Real, but they’re fast, sneaky, and they pay in cash. You know, like a drug deal”) in order to pay for an electronic keyboard. The one dress that really has Charlotte upset is a pink Chanel she got Lily for her first grown-up piano recital, which the Real Deal had the audacity to put on sale. “This is blasphemy,” Lisa says. “I think that’s Lagerfeld’s last collection. In a few years, it will be worth three times that.” “Four,” Charlotte corrects.

Charlotte recruits Carrie to help her out as she heads to the Real Deal to try to find Lily’s old Chanel dress, and the two could not look more like opposites. Carrie goes more Mission Impossible for the retrieval task, wearing an upcycled 1960s flight suit from Converted Closet. She pairs the look with the Extreme Dior heels, Fendi socks featuring a mini baguette bag, an opal necklace from Fry Powers, and the iconic JW Anderson pigeon purse.

Charlotte, meanwhile, stays close to her tried-and-true proper look, confronting the nonplussed Real Deal sales saleswoman in a black pencil skirt, sheer Gucci fall/winter 2017 blouse (which, ironically enough, is available on The Real Real), and a white Valextra top-handle bag.

Carrie loses her podcast and her friend with benefits in just a matter of minutes, but at least she looks good in this all-magenta look. While Carrie usually loves to mix patterns and colors, this time, she opts to go monochrome in the final scene of episode two, wearing a belted wrap dress and a matching bag, both vintage pieces. She then completes the look with metallic fuchsia heeled sandals and a pendant necklace from Jemma Wynne.