As Sex and the City 2 hits theaters, the House of Field fashion designer and inventor of Carrie Bradshaw's look (the vintage chiffon frills, the nurse's cape, the tutu...) shares her secrets for authentic, fearless and very stylish living. 
Best Shoes
Ugg boots and Havaianas flip-flops are the most comfortable, the easiest to run around in, they hold up and they're affordable. If I feel like wearing my flip-flops in winter, I have those Japanese split-toe socks. For me, fashion is function.

Best Meal
There's a Japanese restaurant on 43rd Street in Manhattan called Sakagura, where they cook beef on a hot, hot, hot stone and make a great egg custard with shrimp and serve a range of sake. The Japanese are serious about refinement and how they attain it—I respect that.

Best Saturday Night
I'm not opposed to going out, but I designed my Manhattan home as a gathering place for my friends and me. It's like a lounge: open space, good music, nice lighting, excellent drinks. It's small enough for few and large enough for many.

Best Housewarming Gift
The artist Richard Alvarez painted a multicolored garden of women and flowers on a long strip of glass for my kitchen backsplash. It's big and beautiful and totally makes the room.

Best Career Advice
Don't ask, "What should I do?" Ask, "What am I good at?" For me, fashion is easy and pleasant, but it was also a means to an end—the bigger goal was always to have an independent career.

Best Totem
I have a gold ring with a Greek key pattern—my mother was Greek. It's a nice color on my skin, and it's meaningful to me. With anything you wear, if you feel it, you own it. That's what style is.

Best Role Model
Cleopatra. She's still got a reputation after 2,000 years.

Best Mind Cleanser
Floating on my back in the ocean off Miami Beach. It's calm and warm and buoyant; I get that sleepy feeling and drift away to a place where there's no fear. Fear is not rational. You have to push it away, dump it in the garbage. It's like processed sugar—you can live without it.

Best Bra
I'm full-breasted, so I like a Brooklyn Bridge kind of bra. Freya is an English brand that constructs old-fashioned bras with an underwire. I wear black and colored bras in lace or satin—no neutrals, no athletic bras. You've got to draw the line somewhere.

Best Motivational Music
Jay-Z and Alicia Keys's "Empire State of Mind" is the "Star-Spangled Banner" of the city. I'm New York born and bred, and this song says it all.

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