Many artists have a sole principle that guides their careers and draws them to certain projects. Legendary costume designer and self-described “put-together artist” Patricia Field, knows when a combination of patterns, a retro camera phone case or a $5 tutu works for a character simply when it makes her happy.
“I like happy clothes because I like happy,” she says in her new documentary Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Field, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival this week. “[Clothes] can be different colors, they just have to be happy together.”
Happy Clothes, directed by Michael Selditch, is a loosely structured look at the New York City icon’s indelible contributions to film and television over her decade-spanning career—most famously, her Emmy-winning, iconic work on HBO’s Sex and The City.
More of a messy patchwork of career highlights than a standard, chronological overview, the film takes viewers down a rabbit hole of Field’s acid-colored creations and endeavors, including her former downtown boutique that became a legendary LGBTQ hub. Along the way, audiences are treated with testimonials from celebrities, friends, and even her former partner Rebecca Weinberg, all praising her genius and refreshing generosity.
The movie begins by swooping in on Field’s present-day life, ahead of her 80th birthday. The fuchsia-haired stylist, accompanied by her younger assistants, is visiting various showrooms, collecting eccentric finds for her latest assignment, the Starz show Run The World. At the same time, she’s working on her autobiography Pat In The City: My Life Of Fashion Style and Breaking All The Rules, which was released in February.
For any icon, the joint arrival of a documentary and a memoir—although, in the doc, Field recoils at the term for sounding too final—signals a bowing-out. At the end of the film, Field even hints that it may be time for her to retire soon. (Although, the recent news that she dressed Kim Cattrall for her solo scene inAnd Just Like That… Season 2 would say otherwise.)
When The Daily Beast’s Obsessed asked Field what compelled her to commemorate her life in print and on film, she said the timing of both projects was simply a coincidence.
“I actually don't think it really started within my consciousness,” she said over Zoom. “Other than [that] I'm prone to new adventures.”
“I remember when I was in Bergdorf Goodman one day,” she said. “I saw this book. And it was [New York icon]Betty Halbreich in some kind of a cocoon on the cover. And it caught my eye. And from that experience, I contacted the [book’s] writer Rebecca Paley, and we worked closely together.”
Happy Clothes was a product of happenstance, too. Selditch interviewed Field for his 2019 CNN docu-series on American fashion, American Style, and instantly fell in love with her sense of humor and sharp intellect. Given the rich tapestry of Field's career and identity as a Greek-Armenian, queer, underground “it” girl, he was dying to make her his next subject.
“There are a lot of elements to Pat that are really compelling,” Selditch said. “From the beginning, for Pat to be in her twenties in the ’60s and open up her own shop as an independent woman, a first-generation American, openly gay—I mean, that takes a lot of courage and guts. And I think that ‘going with her gut’ is something that I have noticed as I’ve studied Pat's world.”
Field is constantly alluding to her gut instinct and anarchic spirit throughout the film. Style, as opposed to fashion, can forgo any logic or rationale. But there’s something especially alchemical about watching her pull what others might write off as a gaudy pair of pants or blazer from a rack and immediately knowing that it works. Although what she does, of course, requires knowledge and skill on top of her own innate taste.
“She’s not held back by somebody saying something negative,” Seldith said. “If she’s feeling it, she goes with her gut, and is never thinking about how can I do this or how can I become famous? Or how can I make this thing iconic? These things just happened because of her instincts.”
When it comes to choosing projects to work on, Field can’t fully articulate what it takes to make her say yes to a show or movie either. However, for Run The World, a Sex and the City-inspired comedy-drama with an all-Black cast, she had an explicit reason for why she was so thrilled to work on that series.
“When I received the phone call about doing the costumes for Starz, I was like, ‘I’ve never done a Black cast before,’” she said. “I was so happy to have this opportunity to do this show and that I was asked to do it, because you would think that they would call somebody from the Black community. And I admire Black women, particularly, because they care about themselves. They’re not just walking around [looking like] a mess.”
Field’s contributions on the hit Netflix series Emily in Paris was
a result of her previous collaboration with Sex and The City creator Darren Star, who also appears in the documentary. Most of the films and television series Field has worked on seem to exist in these bustling urban landscapes centered around women, whether it’s Ugly Betty, The Devil Wears Prada, Murphy Brown, Cashmere Mafia, or Confessions of a Shopaholic. In the film, she notes that she could never work on a “war film or a vampire movie.”
The documentary chronicles all of the television stars Field has collaborated with, but shines a spotlight on her longtime friendship with Kim Cattrall, who discusses the connection they formed on the set of Sex and the City. In addition to dressing for her highly anticipated AJLT… cameo, she was also recruited by the Mannequin star to help with the wardrobe on her upcoming Netflix show Glamorous. While Field said she can’t speak about the former, she echoes Cattrall’s sentiments about their bond in the doc.
“Sex and The City went on and on and on,” she said. “And Kim and I’s relationship grew. It helps me to feel that way because it helps me to put the character and the actor together. So [Cattrall] was definitely going to be in the documentary. As a matter of fact, she said she’s going to pick me up and drive me [to the premiere.]”
In addition to Cattrall, most, if not, all of the talking heads in Happy Clothes praise Field’s collaborative spirit and her openness to receiving actors’ input. These anecdotes reminded me of a recent episode of the pop-culture podcast Like a Virgin, where Ugly Betty actor Mark Indelicato recalled his experiences being warmly embraced and considered by her as a nascent child actor, noting that she “never looked at one character as a throwaway.”
“She really does listen to all the people around her, especially the young people around her,” Selditch told me.
“There’s no way I could be a control freak,” Field said. “That’s not my role.”
Ultimately, Happy Clothes unveils a passion for people beneath Field’s passion for style, specifically the youth. When I ask her if she still feels the same sense of optimism observing young people today with all their heavily mocked TikTok fashions and recycled looks, Field has nothing but kind words.
“I'm very happy with the energy of younger people,” Field said. “And I learned from younger people as well, because, you know, the world is changing very rapidly. I was born way before computers.So I find it challenging. And if I didn't have young people around me, I probably would be lost. They bring another energy, another attitude.”
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