Since the glamour of black and white TV, fashion on-screen has always been a major visual element for viewers, sometimes with audiences tuning in just to see the clothes. Whether you love the fashion, the characters, or both, you are not alone. Not wanting to spoil the entire list for anyone, here are a few of the most fashionable black women to ever grace the small screen — and a few non-brown honorable mentions.

Carrie Bradshaw might be the only fictional white woman (aside from Nancy Drew) who I wouldn’t have had a problem trading places with. She had maaaad style, great friends, a dope job, and the New York City dating life transplants like me could only dream about. But after six seasons, a whole lot of sex, and two movies (one that was hella forgettable), we only had reruns to get our Carrie fix. But now, you can catch up with her again, the old-school Carrie that is, via the show “The Carrie Diaries.” In it, we meet Bradshaw in high school, trying to cope with the death of her mother, trying to survive high school (and boys), and getting the opportunity of a lifetime to intern in New York City. Where it all began.

In her first big trip to the Big Apple, Bradshaw meets a lot of interesting characters, including Larissa Loughton, a black “It girl” working for Interview magazine who helps Carrie transform her style and get acquainted with the New York nightlife, becoming her mentor. Shout out to Brit star Freema Agyeman (of Ghanaian-Iranian background) for nabbing the role and looking fabulous while doing it. From what I take from the trailer, the show is bound to be a very interesting one, and the fashions are interestingly enough some of the same ish people are wearing now. Here’s to hoping the CW doesn’t fail this show as they’re known to do (remember how they dropped the ball with “The Game” and let it go to BET to become a mess?). But only time will tell. What do you think of the trailer? Would you watch?

If you’re down, the show premieres in January on the CW.

SingleintheSip.com

You ever been in love? I’m talkin’ ‘bout that makes-your-knees-tingle kind of love, that I’mma-jump-on-Oprah’s-couch kind of love. That kind of love that has you finally knowing what all those R&B songs are all about, the kind of love that makes you throw your hands up and shout every time you hear Luther Vandross sing, “Who needs to go to work to hustle for another dollar? I’d rather be with you ‘cause you make my heart scream and holla.” I mean that glassy-eyed kind of love where you take every opportunity to mention your beloved’s name. That kind of love where “I” becomes “We” and you revel in the moment that two have finally become one.

In an episode of “Sex and the City” (“The Agony and the ‘Ex’-Tacy”; season four, episode one for the uninitiated), Carrie Bradshaw and company attend an engagement party for which the invitation states that the betrothed couple have “two souls, one thought”.

“If two souls have only one thought between them, something is very wrong,” Carrie quipped.

In curly-haired Carrie Bradshaw fashion, I couldn’t help but wonder about how women maintain their individual identities in relationships. This conversation, though hardly a new one, is timely, considering the murmurings that surround the break-up of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes (forever infused as TomKat in Hollywood relationship terms). Or Kate, as Tom reportedly preferred to call her. Writer Kathleen Perricone reports,

Ever since the two first got together in 2005, the “Mission Impossible” star has insisted on referring to his [soon-to-be-former] wife as “Kate,” even though neither her friends nor her family has ever called her that[…]During an interview with All Headline News, [Cruise] explained, “Katie is a young girl’s name. Her name is Kate now – she’s a child-bearing woman.” At the time, it was also reported that Holmes had agreed upon the name change “after discussing it with Tom” and as a result “all friends and family now call her Kate.”

Cruise’s couch-jumping kind of love, his Scientologist beliefs and the pair’s blog-worthy break-up have onlookers wondering what really went on in the marital home shared by the former “Dawson’s Creek” star and one of Hollywood’s most bankable leading men.

“She always seemed scared to me,” a friend of mine noted during a conversation about the split. “It was like she was always under his thumb.”

Another hot commodity in celebrity coupledom? Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, a pair that has reportedly crossed the 72-day threshold that Kardashian and basketball star Kris Humphries couldn’t reach during their brief marriage last fall. Kardashian has been photographed rocking “KW” stud earrings and has tweeted a picture of her and her beau’s his-and-hers sneakers. An innocuous digital display of affection? Lost in love or simply a case of tingling knees? It doesn’t help that not only do they go to everything together now (even laser hair removal treatments), but people have pointed out that her style has changed to better fit his, and has faded into dull looks of a monochromatic, “let’s match to everything we go to!” type of fashion. She looks more like his experimental muse than his lady.

In everyday life, I’ve wondered about friends who had essentially disappeared off the face of girls’ night out and Sunday brunches to hang out with the he, adjusting their schedules and lives to their man, maybe even their personality. Yes, it’s important to cultivate romantic relationships, but in efforts to keep the love we find, when do we lose ourselves completely?

In an essay for the Huffington Post, writer Vicki Larson cites the idea of the “Disappearing Woman,” a concept developed by relationship expert and psychotherapist Beverly Engel. In her book, “Loving Him Without Losing Yourself”, Engel writes

No matter how successful, assertive, or powerful some women are, the moment they  become involved with a man, they begin to give up part of themselves — their social life, their time alone, their spiritual practice, their belief and values.

Even in Carrie Bradshaw’s fictional New York, friend Charlotte converted to Judaism to marry her divorce lawyer-turned-husband Harry, and, in the show’s final season, Carrie uprooted her life, career and friendships to follow a Russian suitor to Paris, only to return home after realizing that she had lost her identity in the whirlwind.

In relationships, compromise is necessary, emblems of love can be cute and sometimes, love requires a leap of faith.  But at which point during the swell of the swoon do we become disappearing women, and how can we turn it around?

Do you know women who have changed a lot due to a relationship?

More on Madame Noire!

• Just a Thought, Maybe More People Would Try Online Dating If The Ads Weren’t So Corny
• Ask A Very Smart Brotha Live: He Cheated When I Was 3 Wks Pregnant, Should I Forgive Him?
• Good Sex, Are You Having It? The Importance of Communication In The Bedroom
• MN Exclusive: Tempestt Bledsoe Talks New Show, Men who Make Less & Natural Hair
• So What If I Don’t Cook? This Is For Women Who Aren’t Obsessed With What Men Want In A Wife
• Relaxed & Real, Episode 1: From Daytime To Evening
• 8 Things We Want To Tell Our Potential Suitors: The First Date No No’s For Men

In Sex and the City 2, we saw our favorite New York fashionistas finally get their happily ever afters, particularly Carrie, but what was the best-selling author like before she met Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte? If you haven’t already read the “Carrie Diaries” you may have a chance to see her in action because the CW has ordered a pilot for a show based on the book.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, “the Carrie Diaries” will focus on Carrie during her senior year of high school in the early 80s,  as she “asks her first questions about love, sex, friendship and family while navigating the worlds of high school and Manhattan.”

The first book in “The Carrie Diaries” series was published in 2010, and the sequel, “Summer and the City: A Carrie Diaries Novel,” came out last year. In the novels, Carrie is from a small town in New England, but the story line will be moved to New York to make for better television. Plus Amy B. Harris, who worked on the original “Sex and the City,” wrote the “Carrie Diaries” pilot and will serve as showrunner, so the series should be in good hands. There’s just one question, though, who should play the young Carrie Bradshaw? Something tells me Blake Lively will be all over this.

Are you excited for the “Carrie Diaries” to come to TV? Who do you think could pull off a young Carrie/Sarah Jessica Parker?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

More on Madame Noire!

• Are You A Socially Awkward Black Girl?
• Terribly Tatted Up: When Celebrities Get Ratchet Tattoos for the Ones They Love
• The Most Painful Things A Woman Can Say To A Man
• Huh?!?: 8 Media Moments That Made Us Go WTF
• We Are Family: Shocking Celebrity Relatives!
• Let’s Be Real: Things in Life You Need to Blame Yourself For From Time to Time
• 7 Simple Things Men Can Do That All Women Will Love

There has to be a lot of pressure to be deemed a relationship expert, but Madame Demetria Lucas, also known as the “A Belle in Brooklyn” seems quite capable of handling the pressure.

Read the rest of this entry »