Carrie Bradshaw Meets Anna Wintour

(NEW YORK) There's more to Vogue's relationship with the new Sex and the City movie than meets the eye.

In the new Harper Collins book Sex and the City: The Movie, which, like the film, debuts today, Michael Patrick King makes several revelations about the relationship his film, based on the Candace Bushnell novel, has with the iconic Condé Nast title. First off, the executive producer reveals that he wrote the Vogue montage (the part where Sarah Jessica Parker's character, Carrie Bradshaw, is filmed being photographed by Patrick Demarchelier for a faux Vogue "Age Issue." "I needed it to be the real Vogue magazine," King said. "Consequently, the script had to be approved by [editor in chief] Anna Wintour."

Fortunately for King, Wintour approved and even offered up her own creative team for Carrie's shoot. "She complemented me on what she liked and told me what she thought could be better, then closed her e-mail with, 'I hope you find these suggestions helpful--if not, throw them in the trash where they probably belong,' which I thought was incredibly classy," King added.

Below, some fun facts surrounding Vogue's involvement with the fashion-forward film:
-The Sex and the City crew met with Wintour and her staff over eight weeks to get approval for the gowns in the shoot.

-Wintour approved all of the Vogue background players in both the fashion shoot and the scenes at the Vogue offices. Among those who made the cut were Demarchelier, Serge Normant, Gucci Westman, and Vogue's André Leon Talley, Plum Sykes, and Lawren Howell.

-Talley coached Parker on how to pose. "The dress that was most physically cumbersome was the Dior dress with the massive hat," the actress recalled. "André directed me to stand that way. I happily obliged."

-Talley had initially said that he could stay at the shoot only until 5 p.m., but ended up there until the middle of the night. "André was never at any of my [past Vogue cover] shoots," said Parker. "It was like having the Godfather come to dinner."

-One dress the costume department could not gain access to was a YSL gown from the designer's 2002 retrospective nicknamed "Q-Tip" due to its shape similar to a giant ice cream cone. Not even calling the Met Museum's Costume Institute, friends of Yves Saint Laurent himself, nor his foundation worked. "We had a plan that we would fly the dress in with handlers, who would only remove it from its box for the time we needed it for the shoot," recalled Melinda Relyea, the film's associate producer. "Sadly, none of our plans were convincing enough to the foundation, and the dress stayed in France."

-Carrie Bradshaw's Vivienne Westwood wedding dress almost didn't happen. Molly Rogers, one of the film's costume designers, originally wanted a Dior gown with a huge flower on it that she had seen at the Paris show. DVDs were sent to LVMH chief Bernard Arnault, but it failed to materialize. "In an earlier version of the script, the gown had to show up in the fashion show after the wedding," said Rogers. "So this gown was going to dictate which designer's fashion show was in the movie. The biggest bang for the buck would have been a Dior show, because Dior is known for being completely theatrical." Patricia Field, for her part, originally suggested the black Zac Posen gown for Carrie that Kristin Davis, aka Charlotte York Goldenblatt, eventually wears instead.

-Of all the outfit changes and the scenes to shoot, the most difficult one was the wedding in front of the New York Public Library. It required two costume dressers, and because the dress had to touch the New York streets, an inner tube was created and placed inside the gown so it wouldn't drag.

-As for that Vivienne Westwood dress, its 15 minutes of fame has paid off: Two "hero-worshipping" brides ordered it by the time the movie wrapped. The cost? $25,000.