HP teams up with Sex and the City 2'

NEW YORK — Blame it on the Sex and the City franchise for making us fall in love with its characters, and the city as we know it. We related to Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte’s dramas and neuroses and aspire for their careers and wardrobes as they walked, took cabs, ate and shopped their issues away in Manhattan. So let’s come clean. Many of us have gone or dreamt of going to New York to play, study, work, fall in love, or get married and not exactly in that particular order, with maybe just a little bit of prodding from the SATC girls.

The relevance of these characters to our lifestyles has led HP and Warner Bros. Pictures to partner and spotlight HP’s spring collection of products in the much-awaited movie, which opened May 27 in the US.

According to Tracey Trachta, executive director, Global Marketing, Personal Systems Group of HP, “95 percent of the world’s market share uses PCs. I think Warner Bros. was thinking about what’s really authentic and how do we ensure that we continue to connect with women and I think they’ve realized that.”

To dispel all rumors that Carrie left her Mac for a PC, Trachta clarifies the issue, “Our partnership with Sex and the City was really about the whole property and not about displacing Apple. It’s not Carrie who’s using the HP products in the film. It’s actually Samantha. As part of her PR firm she’s using TouchSmart. And then they travel to Abu Dhabi as part of the storyline and she takes her Vivenne Tam mini with her.”

What’s interesting is, while Carrie still types her stories on a Mac, Sarah Jessica Parker, the actress who plays Carrie, uses HP in real life. She has in fact been tapped as the brand’s “Achiever” in the next global “PC is Personal Again” commercial from HP, which is part of the company‘s campaign to demonstrate how technology has become truly personal and relevant. 

“Part of the partnership is a TV spot with Sarah Jessica, as herself, using HP technology. As she has a crazy life as we all do, she uses technology to keep herself sane and organized, run her business, take care of her family,” Trachta expounds.

Leading up to the May 27 film debut was a design panel discussion. Visionaries and industry insiders like Fern Mallis (formerly of IMG and the originator of New York Fashion Week), Kimberly Minor of Priscilla of Boston, Project Runway 7’s Emilio Sosa, fashion designer Vivienne Tam, and Sandie Cheng, senior industrial designer of HP, met with bloggers and lifestyle journalists to talk about parallelisms in technology and fashion, and how the two influence and drive each other.

Emilio Sosa sees technology as a platform, a tool to get one’s vision across, while Vivienne Tam believes designers must still care about the human touch and that building a brand is more than just using technology.

“I think ultimately the most important thing is the design of the product. People won’t buy from you if your design is no good. No matter how much you’re tweeting, if your design is no good, then it doesn’t work. At the end of the day, what’s more important is your product, the design, the quality of the design,” she asserted.

With the continuing rise of the use of technology and social media in branding labels, it was inevitable that the question of how much information sharing is too much has become a relevant concern.

Fern Mallis humorously and wisely pointed out, “Locally, there is a bunch of stupid celebrities in Hollywood who are teaching us how much is too much. We’re learning that we can’t put too much out there and there’s no such thing as privacy. I think everybody just has to be a little bit smarter and just really think twice before you hit that send button.”

Kimberly Minor wisely noted, “People see technology as a way to get their name out there, their brand. Not really realizing a brand is a promise, it’s more than just a name, it’s a promise you are making to your consumer. Tweeting or blogging can be good for one person, but can be a liability for someone else. So you have to be responsible in using technology. Technology is good, too much of it though, using technology without care, is too much.”

But before we are reminded of the travesties of overexposure and over sharing, let’s segue to the movie. The media event was not complete without a pre-screening of SATC2. While I saw Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner walking out midway through the screening, and calling SATC2 a “2.5 hour infomercial” on Twitter, it seemed to me that the rest of the audience found it amusing.

You would feel the same if you came with no expectations and just wanted a good time. So be forewarned that this movie was made for entertainment’s sake alone. It is pure, delightful fluff, high on fashion with lots of humorous banter. Admittedly, a shallow, almost forced plot was made up for with amusing scenes peppered with cameos by Liza Minelli , Miley Cyrus and Penelope Cruz.

When SATC’s costume designer Patricia Field was asked by T Magazine how accurately the series and the film reflected the fashions of the time, her reply might as well be an accurate review of SATC2, “It’s not a documentary reflecting a reality, it’s a hyper reality with the intention of entertaining and pleasing people’s fantasy and imagination.”

Word.