How has retail changed during Covid? And your leadership of your business? Retail has been obviously really hurt by the pandemic. I think what it’s going to take to survive, is to have a connection, to get small again, frankly. We were able to get small because we are small, and I think there’s an advantage to that. I think the pandemic has changed me as a leader because we’ve had to say to ourselves every single day how do we keep our employees? But to also grow a business at the same time, where do we redirect our efforts? If that means I’m dropping off shoes on the way Downtown then that’s what I’m doing. If that means being in the store on the days when the numbers have risen in New York and people are scared again, then I say, ‘I’m in the store, I will call, I will walk you through, we will have a virtual experience. ’ We have just really hunkered down. We’ve kept our doors open. We’ve gotten far more creative we love our business, we love our customers, we don’t want to disappoint them. And I want to keep this business alive because I love it.
You mentioned hand-delivering shoes in your neighbourhood on your way home from work – what do people say when Sarah Jessica Parker knocks on their door with their delivery? Well, I tell them in advance because I have to get their address, so they’re not that surprised. So when I make drops, they know I’m coming and they’re all very nice. I don’t know how much they enjoy it - but I can tell you now it’s a highlight of my day, That’s why I love being on the floor because I meet people from literally all over the world.
Can you talk about the creative process of designing shoes? Well, George [Malkemus] and I do it together, and our team is a huge part of it we always ask, their thoughts, their feelings. When our samples come in from Italy, everybody gets to be part of it, everybody gets to say how they feel about a shoe, about materials, about a new ornament. I think what we do is we never look at trends, doesn’t even enter into the conversation. First of all what we do is we try to design into success. So what I mean by that is, what do we see our customers coming back for over and over and over again, and how do we protect that? So what we’ve created is something called ‘Evergreen’. So there’s a bunch of shoes that are evergreen, that will always be there. The next part of it is - what does she need? And then what does she want? And part of what she wants, we learn just through our engagement with social media.
But also there is a new time right? People are at home a lot now. That will obviously change but how much that will change we don’t know. So we’ve thought a lot about what do we give our customer to have in their home, how do you still have a party for your foot when you’re not leaving your home? I think more and more people are going to entertain in their home with safe numbers, but we’ve seen people wanting to dress up still.
So we think a lot about how do we accommodate that? What is an indoor shoe? What does that look like? What does it mean? One last thing I’ll say is we really tried to make sure to have flats, sneakers, block heels, all different heights because people want a beautiful shoe but not everybody wears a high heel. But they don’t want just a sensible shoe if they don’t wear high heels. So all of that’s part of the conversation.
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So right now the SJP collection includes shoes, accessories, fragrances, books, wine, a little black dress – what’s next in your line up? You have to grow, you have to find new initiatives, it’s just the way the world works now. So we’re always creating new silhouette styles. We have a backpack that’s been really successful for us that we love and that I carry every day so we’ve been able to roll out really great colours. We’re about to have an amazing new colour and we’re about to make a really exciting announcement about that collection growing. The shoe collection will always grow. And then the other sort of accessory business will always grow because you really want to have something for everybody that comes into the store so we try to have something at every price point just so that customers can leave with something.
Tell us about Pretty Matches, your production company, and why you decided to launch it? After spending so much time and having such a singular experience on ‘Sex in the City’, HBO had been my home for 10 plus years and when the show ended, it just felt peculiar to walk away from really what had become such an important professional home for me. I was really excited about trying to produce more television that I felt HBO was uniquely equipped to do. I had grown over this period of time to love television. I grew up without television, I didn’t have a TV for most of my childhood. So it was a medium that I really didn’t understand. I worked in it as a young adult but I really grew to love the medium. And I also had the opportunity to work with an amazing woman, Alison Benson, who came in and we’ve been in partnership for 16 years now and she’s extraordinary and smart and inspired, and has brought in so many amazing female writers and female directors. So it’s been a wonderful experience.
Why are literary projects so important to you? I’m one of eight children and my mother was, is still, a voracious reader. Books were just a huge part of our growing up life. My mother had a rule in our home that you could not leave the house without something to read, without a book in your hands, even for those of us who were too young to even know yet how to read. And so books were the sort of companions that were forced upon us.
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CE L EBRIT Y INTERVI EW SARAH J E S S ICA PARK ER
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