The enduring Manhattan conflict – how to attend two or more simultaneous events – unfolded at noon on June 6. Food fashionistas had the option of lining up for the Museum of Ice Cream grand opening or getting a free Carrie cupcake for the Magnolia Bakery celebration of Sex and the City’s 20th anniversary.
To spoil the ending, ice cream defeated cupcakes in this momentary glam game.
Magnolia was giving away 50 cupcakes between noon and 1 p.m. to commemorate the June 6, 1998 premiere of the HBO show that would later turn the bakery into a pop-culture juggernaut. Customers received a Carrie cupcake free with purchase.
I spent most of the hour inside the original Greenwich Village location. There was little signage inside, this being the only evidence I saw.
The bakery invited customers to recreate the Sex and the City scene in which two of the four characters have coffee and a cupcake on a bench outside the bakery. There is no bench there in real life and no temporary bench was in place during my June 1 and June 6 visits.
Nonetheless, Magnolia posted this message to customers.
The bakery did not post any contest entries it received or announce winners.
From what I could hear at a distance, no customers asked for the promotional Carrie cupcake by name. Foreign tourists were confused when the clerk said they were eligible for the free cupcake. There was much awkward stumbling through an explanation of Sex and the City and its cupcake connection. The staff performance was lackluster and the foreigners’ comprehension negligible. There were still some free Carries left at 1 p.m.
There were plenty of customers, but few ordered cupcakes. Most notably, there were no groups of fashionable women dressed like Sex and the City characters reliving the show’s lifestyle. In summary, I saw no explicit public interest in the free Carrie cupcakes and the cultural symbolism they embody. In this time and place, the historical moment passed with only token acknowledgment.
That evening, I attended a Sex and the City film screening and panel discussion. The event was a tour stop for the release of Jennifer Keishin Armstrong’s book Sex and the City and Us.
Watching from across the street as attendees entered the cinema, I saw one woman in a tutu-like skirt. That’s the spirit. As it turned out, she was a panelist, so she was more invested in the program.
I didn’t see anyone else in costume, but maybe there were some. Regardless, it was instructive time well spent.
Rewinding to midday, there was quite the buzz outside the Museum of Ice Cream. It was opening a retail shop in the Meatpacking District and gifting the first 50 people with a free pint of ice cream.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BjpQK4zA9HY
All these people queued up to enter and buy ice cream.
Designed for youthful eye candy and fantastic photo ops, the museum attracted the likes of these dolled-up women.
Why did cupcakes so dramatically lose the glam game? Consider the generational factor. Women old enough to have watched Sex and the City are now in their late 30s and older. As this point on the career ladder, it’s unlikely they’d leave their offices at midday and change into a period costume for nostalgic indulgence.
This is not a referendum on cupcakes’ popularity. The cupcake persists as a powerful symbol. Its footprint is increasingly impactful, even if it didn’t attract a stampede of designer stilettos here and now.
Andrea Adleman | Cupcakologist 