Lines in the sand

If a gripping plot, brilliant dialogue and Oscar-worthy performances are your mandate for a night at the movies, Sex and the City 2 is probably not the way to go.

But if you want to feast your eyes on the kinds of clothes that make grown women weep with longing, then get to the cinema quick.

The sequel to the 2008 hit movie, which itself followed on from the acclaimed HBO series, is, by most measures, a bit of a disappointment. It cost about US$95 million to make, and in its first five days in the US - including the crucial Memorial Day weekend - raked in about US$51 million; not bad, but less than the first movie made in a shorter time a couple of years ago. Critics have roundly railed against it.

But, whatever its faults, this is a movie that doesn't stint on the wow factor: just when you think there's a look that can't be topped, longtime Sex costumer Patricia Field adds another style wallop. It's unrelenting glamour in virtually every frame.

'I thought the fashions this time were so beyond out there, really beyond reality,' says Monica Schweiger, a Los Angeles-based stylist who has worked with the likes of Katy Perry, Debra Messing, Alicia Silverstone and Lady Gaga. 'It's total eye candy for the fashion lover ... you know, riding a camel in the middle of the desert in heels is just a few steps beyond. I thought at least they'd change into some fabulous YSL wedges or something.'

The entire film is steeped in a sense of unreality. The girls - Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte - are on an all-expenses-paid trip to Abu Dhabi. Against a fabulously palatial backdrop, they trot out one divine frock/sexy stiletto/borderline absurd hat after another.