Carrie dresses up again in And Just Like That Season 2

Get out your name tag necklace and pour yourself a Cosmopolitan: A new wave of Carrie Bradshaw is about to flood the culture. On the heels of the 25th anniversary of the debut of the original “Sex and the City,” the second season of the Max Original spin-off series “And Just Like That…” premieres Thursday on Crave.

Carrie’s talisman pendant is still around her neck, she continues to love Manolos and Fendi baguettes. A year after Mr. Big’s death, she’s emerged as a widow who’s written a memoir about her experience — and must narrate it for the audiobook — and is almost ready to put her happy rags back on and re-enter the world to wade. the New York City dating cesspool.

“In Season 1, there was a funeral,” said Molly Rogers, one half of the “And Just Like That…” costume design team. “Now, with Season 2, most of us know what it’s like to come out of a period of mourning: You’re in celebration.” You can see that in the clothes: she mentions saturated colors and exaggerated silhouettes, ‘throw a tutu in there’.

Her co-designer Danny Santiago (I spoke to both of them at a group press conference), agreed. “She’s someone who has always loved fashion and putting things together, but I think she enjoys it even more now.”

This is an ensemble show, and by the second season, the larger, more diverse cast of characters feels much more cohesive. But the core of the story will always be Carrie Bradshaw, based on the writing of Candace Bushnell, who wrote a sex column for the New York Observer in the mid-1990s.

Deftly and indelibly played by Sarah Jessica Parker, Bradshaw was always sweeter, more whimsical, and more moral than the source material: adorably flawed, but remarkably recognizable despite her elite New York insider status. The success of the character’s transition over three decades is all down to the way Parker consistently imbues her with a big, exuberant heart and innate kindness.

We learn in Season 2 that Carrie is now 56 (Parker is 58). This is my demographic. I’ll admit I wasn’t into the spunky single “Sex and the City” women the first time around; I had my first child the year the series debuted. I still don’t identify with the rhythm of their lives, but now something has struck a chord: how fresh it feels to see women in their 50s enjoying fashion so much, and being so safe and sexually confident in how they Express themselves. This is intentional.

“I don’t think there’s a rule for what you should wear at any age,” Santiago said. “It’s more your confidence and what you feel good about when you put yourself out there.”

Bradshaw is back in the West Village after giving up on her country house life; a reunion with her old flame Aidan is on the horizon. Charlotte is an Upper East Side mom (and occasional momager to her non-binary teen model daughter) who begins to long for her former work identity. Rigid attorney Miranda is now a Brooklyn couch surfer exploring gender and sexual possibilities. Samantha, played by Kim Cattrall, does return this season, but only through a phone call.

A standout among the new characters is fashion legend Seema Patel, a real estate agent played by Sarita Choudhury, whose style is modeled after Bianca Jagger. They all look really good, and they dress less for a runway show or nightclub, more for the life they actually lead. This suits them.

“At a certain age, you know what looks good on you,” Rogers said. “You are more fine-tuned. You know the colors you love, what look nice, and what people have complimented you on. You have your uniform.”

The original ‘Sex and the City’ wardrobe was created by legendary designer Patricia Field. She put what Rogers and Santiago call “the DNA” of the four original characters through costume, before doing the same for “Emily in Paris” with “Sex and the City” creator Darren Star.

The wardrobe budgets for Carrie et al are clearly much more generous than they used to be. In the first season of the original series, Field scrounged around vintage shops and discount outlets. Now the sky is the limit.

“There’s nothing we’re not looking at,” Santiago said. “We have Sarah, who will fit everything. We have so many different places to choose from, whether it’s vintage, new designers that people tip us about, or designers who make special pieces or let us know about things before they actually come out. We go to vintage shows. We went to Paris for shopping.”

Early in the new season, Charlotte’s Upper East Side girlfriend Lisa Todd Wexley, played by Nicole Ari Parker, has an awesome Met Gala moment in a red Valentino look with a feathered headpiece that resembles a dandelion on fire. “We saw that in Rome last year at the couture show, on the Spanish steps, and asked them to make it for us in red,” Santiago said. They also had the studio extend the train to 10 feet for added drama.

Thanks to a genius clause in her contract, Parker has a huge personal archive of items Carrie wore in the original series and she’s bringing many of them back to life this season, a move that’s both nostalgic and fashionably eco-friendly. A memorable rewear moment occurs in the first episode, involving a certain epic Vivienne Westwood dress. It harkens back to a glorified but bittersweet childhood, but also represents a life moving forward, a metaphor for the show’s MO that could be summed up with this line, “And so I have given my pain new purpose.”

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