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‘And just like that, my cardigan was hanging in Carrie Bradshaw’s closet’ – Kildare designer Gabrielle’s TV shock

Knitwear Designer Gabrielle Malone pictured at her home studio with her 'Wave Cardigan' which featured on Episode 8 of 'And Just Like That' with Sarah Jessica Parker. Photo: Steve Humphreys

The camel cardi in Carrie Bradshaw’s closet on 'And Just Like That'

Gabrielle Malone 'Wave' cropped camel cardigan from her AW21 collection. Photo: Aron Cahill

Gabrielle Malone 'Wave' camel cardi and lilac sweater. Photo: Aron Cahill

Knitwear Designer Gabrielle Malone pictured at her home studio with her 'Wave Cardigan' which featured on Episode 8 of 'And Just Like That' with Sarah Jessica Parker. Photo: Steve Humphreys

The camel cardi in Carrie Bradshaw’s closet on 'And Just Like That'

Gabrielle Malone 'Wave' cropped camel cardigan from her AW21 collection. Photo: Aron Cahill

Gabrielle Malone 'Wave' camel cardi and lilac sweater. Photo: Aron Cahill

Knitwear Designer Gabrielle Malone pictured at her home studio with her 'Wave Cardigan' which featured on Episode 8 of 'And Just Like That' with Sarah Jessica Parker. Photo: Steve Humphreys

Bairbre Power Twitter Email

January 22 2022 02:30 AM

“And just like that, there was my ‘Wave’ cardigan hanging in Carrie Bradshaw’s closet, and Sarah Jessica Parker sitting in front of it and I could not believe it,” excited knitwear designer Gabrielle Malone revealed.

Many thousands of miles from Sex and the City character Carrie’s New York stomping ground, Gabrielle celebrated her 25th birthday in Clane, Co Kildare, yesterday with her “did just that happen?” feeling still fresh.

Her ‘Wave’ camel cardigan, hand-knit in Peruvian wool at her home studio, was added to Carrie’s closet for the eighth episode of And Just Like That, the Sex and the City revival from HBO Max.

How the €450 cropped cardigan with the balloon sleeves and dropped shoulder ended up in the most famous wardrobe on Manhattan’s Upper East Side is quite a tale.

As eve-of-birthday presents go, it was some surprise for Gabrielle who only discovered the news two hours before the show screened on Thursday.

The Irish-made knit features near the beginning of the eighth episode as Carrie and her real-estate pal, Seema Patel, eat sushi in her apartment, surrounded by rails of clothes and there – bang in the middle of the frame – is the cardie which Gabrielle crafted after returning home to Ireland two years ago when the pandemic hit.

The aspiring designer had been working two-and-a-half jobs to keep her fashion career dreams alive in New York and back in Ireland, she threw the old bikes and a lawnmower out of the garden shed and created a new studio for herself.

The Wave was the first piece in her Autumn-Winter 2021 collection. She made up the stitch in the sleeve herself, and it was inspired by waves crashing onto Arranmore Island in Co Donegal where her mother’s family hail from and where her granny, Margaret Kavanagh, and her grandaunts used to knit Aran sweaters for American tourists.

The synchronicity won’t be lost on Sarah Jessica Parker whose family have a much loved holiday home in Kilcar, Co Donegal.

Gabrielle explained: “I used to work in TV and film in the States every summer. I had interned with Tess Casey from Cork who owns Aisling Flowers. She bought the cardigan as a Thank You gift for Carol Silverman, set decorator on And Just Like That, and that’s how Carol found me and followed me on Instagram.

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“She wore the cardigan on the set. The director, Michael Patrick King, and Sarah Jessica Parker saw it and loved it, and they added it last-minute to the background of the episode. It’s really amazing.

“Getting that news, two hours before the show screened, was really incredible. If you had told me last year when I was making it, I never would have thought it would end up there.

“Even if it was just in the background for a few moments in two scenes, just the fact that it was beside such an iconic character meant so much to me. There was so many messages afterwards, it’s nice to see that people were as excited as I was.”

Gabrielle built up her luxury knitwear and debuted The Wave and other knits at the Create show in Brown Thomas last summer, but knitting wasn’t always a passion.

“I almost detested knitting for a while when growing up,” explained Gabrielle, who was born in New York and whose National College of Art and Design (NCAD) graduate collection was an exploration of the Arranmore fishermen’s knots and nets. “Sometimes I’ll throw in a different line and I’ll do the pattern off by one or two to get a different effect

Gabrielle's NCAD graduate collection was an exploration of the Arranmore fishermens' knots and nets.

Born in New York, she returned to Ireland when she was four years of age and went back to work to the city every summer since she was 17 so it it is kind of touching that this break through comes with one of New York's finest fashion queens.

After interning in Ready-To-Wear design with Zac Posen, Gabrielle also worked with the jewellery designer, Lulu Frost who is exceedingly popular in Ireland.

In addition to working with Aisling Flowers, Gabrielle later interned and was hired as a director's assistant for four years at New York Fashion Week with Lynne O'Neill.
Shelly Corkery, Fashion Buying Director at Brown Thomas invited her to be part of the CREATE showcase in the Grafton Street store last July. A member of the Council of Irish Fashion Designers (CIFD) , she shows with them bi annually.

It's quite a CV for someone who only turned 25 yesterday and who put her career in New York on ice in March 2020, flying home only discover that in her fashion pivot, contemporary hand knitting was something she would excel at.

Gabrielle Malone 'Wave' cropped camel cardigan from her AW21 collection. Photo: Aron Cahill

With time to play back the entire And Just Like That episode on her birthday yesterday, Gabrielle had time to take it all in because the night before, her hands were shaking with excitement as she tried to take photos and take screen grabs to post on her Instagram.

When she got the news, Gabrielle couldn't bear to wait until the 9pm screening on a Sky channel so she downloaded it on demand and when her parents, Mary and Gerry got home from the weekly shop, she had the image paused on the TV screen and announced her big news to shouts of delight.

The eighth episode of And Just Like That is definitely one for Carrie Bradshaw fashion fans and in the storyline, she attempts to archive some of her designer clothing in storage.

Carrie's billowing grey Atelier Versace Mille Feuille gown makes a reappearance. It became an iconic dress in the annals of SATC fashion moments and is the dress Carrie wore the night she arrived in Paris and was stood up by her then-lover Aleksandr Petrovsky on Sex and the City's two-part series finale in 2004.

Costume designer Patricia Field revealed that the Versace gown, valued at a whopping $80,000, was an all-time favourite of hers. Patricia didn't join the reboot because she was styling the second season of Emily in Paris.

Gabrielle Malone 'Wave' camel cardi and lilac sweater. Photo: Aron Cahill

Last night's episode closed with Carrie wearing it while sitting in the window of her old apartment on the Upper East side which she now calls home again. Carrie is going to pass the gown down to Charlotte's daughter, Lily, who has been helping her archive her clothes and Lily is photographed in a scene in the closet, with Gabrielle Malone's cardigan peeping out behind her.

The 'wave' drama on those balloon sleeves is just too hard to miss.

Gabrielle’s AW21 hand-knits are available to buy at gabriellemalonedesign.com.

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‘And just like that, my cardigan was hanging in Carrie Bradshaw’s closet’ – Kildare designer Gabrielle’s TV shock

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