The Carrie Diaries Costume Designer Eric Daman: "Pre-creating Carrie Bradshaw Was Very Intimidating!"

You'd think getting a call to work on The Carrie Diaries, the CW's new Sex and the City prequel (premiering Monday at 8pm) would be a dream for a costume designer, right? "I was mortified!" Eric Daman tells us. "It's like, no pressure, no pressure at all to do that. Stepping into it and pre-creating Carrie Bradshaw was very intimidating."

But Daman's no stranger to the character--he worked alongside Patricia Field on seasons two, three, and four of SATC, in addition to his genius work on Gossip Girl--so he bravely took on the gig and made teenage Carrie come to life. "It was a full circle project. To have that knowledge in my back pocket and be able to draw from that was really important. I pulled from Sex and the City every day--it felt innate to me. I wanted a symbiosis between teen Carrie and SATC Carrie without it being too obvious."

The Carrie Diaries

That meant digging through his old high school yearbooks for 80s inspiration--"I was kind of a Carrie Bradshaw back then," he says, admitting to driving an hour from his Michigan hometown to find Interview magazines--and putting a more modern, chic spin on the classic era-of-excess aesthetic. "I call it 'aspirational authenticity,'" Daman says of the vibe. "You want it to have a little more polish than it had back then, to make it relatable for today." He says we can even expect some of the show's influences to trickle into the mainstream, like circle skirts and cute animal sweaters (you heard it here first, dolls!). As for the pre-cursor to the Carrie necklace, teen Carrie's Mark Cross handbag emblazoned with her name on it...you'll have to put your DIY skills to the test.

The Carrie Diaries premieres Monday, January 14 on the CW. Will you tune in? Are you as excited about the clothes as we are? Find out more about 'em throughout the season at Eric's blog or by following him on Twitter.