Execs and the city

NEW YORK — PATRICIA FIELD'S deep and smoky voice echoes through a cavernous photo studio where she has been readying the cast of "Cashmere Mafia" for their publicity stills. Field whirls onto the set with magenta hair, turquoise frame spectacles and her fists full of vintage leather belts. She is debating which belts the show's four leads should wear. In the end she decides to mix it up. She is very good at mixing it up.

To call Field a costume designer is an understatement. She is, after all, the woman whose work on "Sex and the City" turned the groundbreaking cable show into a weekly catwalk. Tutu skirts, flower brooches and nameplate necklaces have never been the same since. And the Manolo Blahniks? Without Field, they wouldn't be a household word.

Now, after a bit of a hiatus, she's about to apply her eye and her unique form of character development by couture to a new story line. With a broader potential audience than HBO, "Cashmere Mafia" debuts on ABC on Nov. 27 and gives Field an even longer runway. The show may sound familiar -- the trials and tribulations of four professional women in Manhattan struggling to balance it all -- but the look, judging from two days recently spent with Field on and off the set, will be all its own.

Ask Field about her guiding aesthetic, and the answer is short. "I hope it's not going to be too conservative," she says. "I want it to be imaginative and exciting."

"Conservative" is the last word one would associate with Field, who with her two House of Field stores has been fueling the downtown New York scene with her trademark outrageousness for almost 20 years. Her styling is a mishmash of unexpected elements and inventive touches that add depth and texture to an overall look and make people look twice but in the end always win out.

Back on the set, however, the drama of the moment is the fact that "Cashmere Mafia" isn't the only show this fall to capitalize on the "Sex and the City" vibe. Candace Bushnell, whose bestseller began the "SATC" dynasty, will roll out her own series for NBC called "Lipstick Jungle," based on the novel of the same name. Competition over the two programs ramped up over the summer with the defection of Darren Star, who worked with Bushnell on "Sex and the City" and is now the executive producer of "Cashmere Mafia."