The Carrie Diaries, the Sex and the City prequel, has been widely panned, so it’s understandable that the show’s producers have decided to focus on what really matters: the clothes.

The Carrie Diaries’ costume designer Eric Daman and executive producer Amy B Harris have both been waxing lyrical about the joys of dressing the cast, including AnnaSophia Robb, who plays the young Carrie.

Speaking at the Television Critics’ Association panel to promote the show, Harris said that they had tried to stay away from the 1980s style clichés, and had let clothes from the ‘60s and ‘70s linger in Carrie’s mother’s wardrobe, to feed into Sarah Jessica Parker’s character’s love for vintage clothes. Harris told People magazine “Our whole idea for this was I didn't want it to feel like the joke version of the '80s with people in those thin glasses or parachute pants where even in the '80s we were all kind of thinking, 'Is this a mistake? It think it might be.”

Talking to Huffington Post on set, Daman revealed that Molly Ringwald and John Hughes movies, like The Breakfast Club, were inspirational. So what ‘80s trends do we see in The Carrie Diaries, if the parachute pants are out of the question? “There are definitely some scrunchies, some layered plastic bracelets,” he reveals. “It's subtle but cute things like fruit earrings and big apple brooches, not like the knee highs or legwarmers. She's also wearing quite a few pairs of Keds.” 

Watch AnnaSophia Robb and the original Carrie, Sarah Jessica Parker arriving at a fashion show