“I’m coming over to you,” Sarah Jessica Parker says to me after our interview. My hand is held out for a polite handshake, but SJP being SJP, stands up and comes around the table to pull me in for a farewell hug. And just like that, my life is complete.
We are at Nara Desert Escape in Dubai. The setting sun is casting a golden glow over the sand dunes and the A-list multi-hyphenate in our midst looks amazing in Maison Yeya, the French-Egyptian luxury house whose notable clients include international royals, American singer Jennifer Lopez, Egyptian operatic soprano Fatma Said and Moroccan-Canadian singer Faouzia.
Later, she will change for dinner into a piece by Lebanese designer Dima Ayad (on first-name terms as “Dima” to SJP), just as she did the night before when we met aboard the Lady Nara for an evening dinner sail around the Dubai canals.
That’s right, I have spent two nights in a row with Carrie Bradshaw, and when I post about the experience on Instagram, my phone blows up with messages from friends around the world: “I love her!"; “What is she wearing?"; “Is she as lovely as I think she is?”
When I tell Parker this story, she humbly covers her face with her hands and her business partner and Astrea London founder Nathalie Morrison steps in. “In answer to the question: ‘Is she as lovely as I think she is?’ I can give you the answer: she is.”
The actress is in the UAE for her new role as global creative director of laboratory-grown diamond jewellery brand Astrea London. Founded by private banker-turned-entrepreneur Morrison in 2023, the brand aims to “unite timeless luxury with environmental responsibility, driven by a passionate mission and profound love for the beauty and quality of diamonds”.
“Everything has changed,” Parker says about being back in Dubai. “There are about 30, 40, 50 new buildings. I just feel like it’s moving faster. Nathalie always says this is the country that can do anything; that there is no ‘no’. Here, they move really quickly. They’re not afraid of innovation and trying something, and that remains the same.”
With boutiques in the UK, France and Greece, Morrison chose Dubai’s Mandarin Oriental Jumeira for her brand's flagship store and the pair opened it on December 8 by cutting a big pink ribbon. The following day, Parker and Morrison were at Museum of The Future for a panel on the future of diamonds.
Parker has certainly done her homework when it comes to being au fait with the wants, needs and vagaries of the region’s fashionistas, a skill she honed during her previous visit to the emirate in December 2014 to launch her eponymous shoe line.
“When I first started my shoe company in the States, I joined a big retail brand and I was all like 'colour, colour, colour, colour,” she recalls of her vision for the SJP Collection. “When all the buyers came, they were like 'brown, black, brown, black’.
“Finally, we came to Dubai and we brought all of our satins in every colour under the sun and they were gone within the first hour. When those images went back to America, everybody was like: ‘Where are our colours?’ So, today the women in Dubai are still telling the story first.
“That’s why I think Nathalie was so smart to make Dubai our home in some way … to let the women here have a really important conversation with us, to teach us and encourage us to be our most brave.” She adds: “It was a real source of encouragement to see how the women here reacted and how they responded to the colour. I was like, ‘Here we go again!’”
Few actresses have influenced and shaped the pop culture landscape like Parker. She first appeared on Broadway in 1976 at the age of 11, while her filmography is filled with plenty of cult and fan-favourite movies – Footloose, Mars Attacks!, Hocus Pocus. However, it was her role as New York columnist Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City and more recently the three-season run of And Just Like That with which she is synonymous.
Her well-deserved status as a global taste-maker have made her public appearances, whether at the Met Gala, film premieres or red carpet events for the New York City Ballet of which she is a vice chair, hugely anticipated. And for now, her fashion eye is trained firmly on the Middle East.
“The abaya allows for so much,” she says. “It invites colour, pattern, beauty, shine, dazzle. It’s this palette that women who wear it understand. And the hijab, for example the pins that are used to keep it in place, it makes you so inspired.”
When it comes to the global market for lab-grown diamonds, estimates differ, with its 2023 value ranging from $22.79 billion (Fortune Business Insights) to Statista’s $27.2 billion valuation.
“It’s important to learn what it can be in its own value and its own specialness and beauty,” says Parker. “To know that it’s not about creating a less-expensive something, that’s not what we’re doing.”
Morrison adds: “We can make anything thanks to the versatility of our pieces, any shape, any colour, any forms, any carats, any mix.”
Parker designed 20 pieces for her debut collection for the brand, picking through her own jewellery box for inspiration.
“They were all vintage pieces that I own, nothing important or valuable to anyone but me,” she says. “It was really just going through tonnes of really old jewellery that I’ve had for a really long time that I don’t even have the provenance of.”
Parker has become known for the jewellery she has worn on the red carpet over the years. When it comes to choosing the pieces that accompany her couture, the actress admits she has no secrets to spill or inner workings to unveil.
“There’s been no routine or pattern that’s reliable or that I can call the boilerplate; it’s been a variety of things,” she says.
“It’s working with a designer and thinking simultaneously about what might be special. Seeing a neckline or bodice and thinking: ‘Oh, this won’t require any necklace’, or that a necklace would be the wrong companion to this dress. So, it’s been literally in millions of different ways that it has all come together.”
Next year, Parker will be honoured with the Golden Globe Carol Burnett Award, one of two lifetime gongs that will be presented in the days leading up to the main show. Named after the celebrated American actress, singer and songwriter, the award is given to those who have made a lasting impact on the television industry.
“I protested, not because I objected to the award or what the award is, but more so to me receiving it. I tried to talk them out of it,” she says. “I am so grateful and humbled because I love Carol Burnett and was astounded by her absurdity, wit and singular comedic skills.
“I was enormously touched, but also terrified at the prospect of trying to, on the evening, communicate that kind of gratitude. I’m very nervous, but deeply, deeply honoured.”
And just like that (sorry, I couldn't resist) our interview is over and we have to go our separate ways. SJP has to change into her Dima Ayad gown for dinner and then to bed before her dawn flight back to the Big Apple. I have to journey to a less glamorous destination: the car park.
But there’s one last question to be asked, and it doesn’t come from me as both Parker and Morrison lean forward, intrigued to ask me all about Abu Dhabi.
“We were discussing Abu Dhabi in the car today and I was saying it’s fascinating how they are completely evolving there,” says Morrison.
When I tell them the drive time between Abu Dhabi and Dubai (an estimation Astrea’s publicist, James disputes), Parker smiles: “It’s like going between Brooklyn and New York.”
