The Linen Doctor

I agree with most people that the clothes in the movie Sex and the City are fabulous, but the bed linens are really boring.

We get to see two sets of Carrie’s sheets. The first one, early in the movie, shows a plain white top sheet plain white with three lines of blue embroidery. The pillow case has just one line. Surprising that she would buy a set with the case not matching the sheet. Why not compromise and get Sferra’s “Grande Hotel” with two lines of blue on both? The second set, seen much later in the movie, is just plain white. Plain white is also the sheet of choice for Miranda and Steve — more boredom. No way to tell the quality or thread count, sateen or percale.

Charlotte and Harry at least have a 1” appliquéd border, like Matouk’s “Lowell,” on their sheets, and their daughter has plain white in her very pink room. There is also some color and pattern on the bed where the four girls are hanging out the night before the wedding. We see a silk or sateen sham in gold and a pillow with an ethnic pattern being tossed around, similar to Yves Delorme’s “Serail’ a pattern made in 2007, discontinued this year.

The guys have more interesting sheets. Mr. Big has a set with 1” appliqué on the face and on the edge of the sham, black on grey, similar to Matouk’s Legato, which has three rows rather than two, sitting in front of plain light grey solid. At least I think they’re light grey. They could also be white, hard to tell. He also has a silk quilt with rows of quilting near the edge, like Kumi Kookoon’s “Classic Silk Throw.”

Out in California, we get to see two of Samantha’s hunk’s sheets. The first is a rather conservative tone-on-tone small plaid, like Christian Fischbacher’s “Batist Web.” The second set looks like zebra stripes, except blue on a white ground. We don’t have any pattern like that at Scheuer Linens but they must be out there somewhere. Too bad we don’t get to see any of Samantha’s bed linens since I suspect they would be more interesting than plain white.

Given the cost of the clothes and accessories, it is really kind of surprising that the girls don’t make more of an effort to have their beds look a little bit more interesting. It’s certainly not the cost since plain white sheets can also be very expensive. In a film where the clothes tell us so much about each character, why is the bedding so nondescript?

Maybe they don’t have time to shop for bed linens or maybe they just don’t think it’s that important, which is surprising given how much importance they put on the sex part of Sex and the City.