Left, Sarah Jessica Parker at the New York premiere of Sex and the City in a Nina Ricci gown designed by Olivier Theyskens. Right, Lauren (Davis) Santo Domingo at the Met ball with Olivier Theyskens. (Photos: Joshua Lott/Rueters, left; Billy Farrell/PatrickMcMullan.com)

This week for the New York premiere of Sex and the City, Sarah Jessica Parker wore a strapless Nina Ricci gown designed by Olivier Theyskens. It was one of 40 outfits that Parker planned for the movies premieres in London and Berlin, and the press junkets. She looked glamorous and happy in the dress and was asked several times by reporters on the red carpet if it was the sort of dress that Carrie Bradshaw would have worn. New Yorkers have no trouble seeing SJP as Carrie, and given the TV shows name-dropping familiarity with the fashion world, what she wore to the opening was bound to get attention. It had to be stand-out.

Parker was surprised, then, to learn the morning after the premiere that the silver pleated Ricci dress had already been worn on a red-carpetby Lauren (Davis) Santo Domingo at the Met ball, on May 5. Santo Domingo went to the Met with Theyskens.

Actresses want dresses that no one else has worn, or at least havent been photographed at big events. One reason is the Internet can serve up the double quickly, as it did when Reese Witherspoon and Kirsten Dunst wore the same Chanel frock in separate years, and it makes the dress seem something of a retread. The actress appears to be clueless. How come she didnt know the dress had been worn before? Where were her people? Understandably, the actress can also feel she was used by the house.

Some designers want you to believe that it is just chemistry that makes an actress fling herself at a fashion house. In fact, it is often a contract that binds them, or some quid pro quo relationship, or just a lot of arm-twisting and bullying. Whatever it is, wearing a dress on the red carpet is business, and it is regarded that way in Hollywood or in the fashion. The actress is lending her name and glamour to the dress, and the fashion company is reaping the publicity to sell other products. With red carpets seemingly spanning the world, the business has become, perhaps predictably, aggressive. It can probably feel opportunistic, and maybe it feels that way to the rest of us as well.

I spoke to Parker, and to Mario Grauso, the president of the fashion division at Puig, which owns Nina Ricci. What bothered Parker was that she felt she had been deceived by both Grauso and Theyskens, who met her in the studio and assured her that the dress had never been worn except for magazine shoots.

In the big picture, this is not important, but there is a relationship between the entertainment industry and fashion, Parker said on Thursday evening, adding. Weve watched sales dwindle and weve watched people be less inclined to spend money on clothes. To Parker, these are reasons for companies to take particular care with their relationships. Look, my affection for the dress hasnt changed, she said, but what they did was so short-sighted. Its just unethical and disappointing that they would allow the dress to be worn again.

Parker says she remarked to Theyskens during the fitting that she was surprised the dress hadnt been worn before. He assured her it hadnt.

He didnt say, Well, actually I just escorted Lauren down the red carpet at the Met. said Parker, adding, I just wish it had been handled differently and they had been straight about it.

When I spoke to Grauso, he said, Im upset that shes upset. He explained that when Parker and her stylist asked if the dress had been photographed, he had no reason to mention Santo Domingo, a socialite who worked at Vogue and who recently had her wedding photographed for the magazine. Is Lauren a celebrity? Grauso said. It depends on how you look at it. He said he and Theyskens mainly thought of her as a friend. He then askedsomewhat incredulously, I thoughtDoes everybody look at Style.com? Santo Domingos picture (with Theyskens) appears on the site for the Met.

Grauso said that nowadays everyone wants exclusivity, including the magazines, which ask for specially made dresses, but that may be an unreasonable demand.

I share Parkers perspective that this is a small matter in the larger scheme of things, and Im sure Grauso feels the same. Who wants to complain about a dress? But I also think that Parker, on a big night in her professional lifewhich necessarily involves fashiondeserves to be put in a clear position, so that she can not only feel good about a choice but also not feel duped the next day.

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