Sarah is on the cover of the March issue of Harper’s Bazaar. See an excerpt from the story below.

Why Don’t You? Sarah Jessica Parker

To celebrate the launch of her new fragrances, the actress takes a walk in Diana Vreeland’s (highly polished) shoes

Sarah Jessica Parker is not entirely sure when she became an acronym, an SJP. Watching her reconcile it, one might as well have called her ET, an LBD, or the IRS. “I just don’t have any real sense of my public persona,” she says with a what-are-ya-gonna-do shrug. “I don’t know what people think of me, if they think of me at all.”

Ah, but they do. The SJP is a mythical creature created in the mind’s eye of every girl who has ever watched SATC (Sex and the City, of course). She’s the glamorous everywoman who can skip around cobblestone streets in Manolos, wearing something highly impractical, and yet still brim, endlessly, with possibility. She’s someone who, if we had a bigger shoe budget, we all think we could be.

On an arctic winter day in New York, Sarah Jessica comes racing into Morandi, a fashion-Italian bistro in her West Village neighborhood, padded up in a parka and Ugg boots. “Oh, I should have dressed up for you, but the weather wouldn’t allow it,” she says, nodding at her ensemble of blue jeans, brown henley, and scarf as well as a chunky knit hat from her label, Bitten. Even when the skies are dark and dreary, Sarah Jessica is an optimist. “But,” she inquires in her singsong voice, “don’t you just love this city?”

When Sarah Jessica asks if you love this city, you kind of have to. She is New York’s Tinker Bell. After all, it was her voice that helped navigate the streets of Manhattan for millions of women for whom the city is still Neverland. The voice that articulated the questions so many of us were asking (whether or not it was cool to admit it).

It is fascinating, the fantasy that swirls around Sarah Jessica Parker. Few can resist its pull. Exhibit A: the scene in the MTV documentary on Britney Spears in which Britney is trying on a mini sweaterdress. She and her assistant agree that said outfit is very SJP. “[But] you’re Britney Spears,” the assistant says. “You’re not Sarah Jessica Parker.”

“I can be her for a day,” Britney replies.

“I heard about that,” Sarah Jessica says, clearly still computing. “God bless her. She can be whoever she wants to be for a day. We all can!”

Read the full article here!

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–  Magazines > 2009 > Harper’s Bazaar (US) – March 2009