I have followed the account @carriebradshaws_outfits, which boasts over 190,000 followers, for years. As a fan of the original series, I always loved seeing a new post appear with the source for a coveted piece that Carrie wore on Sex and the City. I decided to reach out because I wanted to know more about the person behind the account and the work that went into it.

When Maiia, the woman behind this account, agreed to chat I decided to go back to the very beginning. I clicked through every post, from the first (December 2020) to the most recent, watching her voice begin to take shape as time went on.

In one caption, Maiia wrote, “A fashion chameleon, Carrie can start her day looking like a streetwise pixie, change into a neo-bohemian outfit for lunch, don an elegant princess dress for dinner, and slip into a skin-baring ensemble for a late-night party.”

But Maiia was never trying to start another fashion page. She was, unknowingly, building an archive one outfit at a time.

“I was fascinated by how Carrie’s style captured emotion and identity, not just fashion trends,” she told me. “At first, I didn’t plan to create a digital archive, but I soon realized no one had ever done it. So I decided to be the first to document her entire wardrobe properly.”

What began as fandom evolved into curatorship. Her captions read less like fan commentary and more like catalog notes from a museum that happens to live on Instagram.

Rewatching Sex and the City has become its own kind of devotion. Maiia has seen it more than thirty times. When she describes why it endures, she doesn’t mention the fashion first. She mentions truth.

“What keeps Sex and the City relevant is its honesty,” she said. “It captured the complexity of being a woman, the mix of ambition, vulnerability, chaos, and desire long before television knew how to show it.”

That honesty makes the show endlessly interpretable. The clothes are extensions of that truth, a wardrobe that reflects emotion rather than perfection. “Carrie didn’t follow trends,” Maiia said. “She created a visual language of freedom.”

There is something deeply archival about this kind of fandom, not collecting for nostalgia but studying as a way of keeping something alive.

Maiia’s feed looks like a museum catalog built for feelings. It’s not overly “perfect” and that’s why I love it. It feels like someone who’s trying to document it all (and there’s a lot)! It feels like someone who’s holding something up to the light and slowly turning it around trying to catch every small detail.

I asked her how much of what she posts feels like storytelling versus research. “It’s always both,” she answered. “The research gives credibility, but storytelling gives meaning. Fashion isn’t just information; it’s emotion.”

I noted this during my research. The images that come with Maiia’s storytelling or remind Sex and the City fans of the lore seem to illicit a strong response from Maiia’s own followers.

This duality is at the heart of what scholars call participatory archiving in fandoms. As Henry Jenkins once wrote, “Fans do not simply consume; they collect, curate, and recirculate culture.” What Maiia does is closer to preservation than participation. Her account bridges pop culture and cultural heritage, treating a fictional character’s closet as an artifact worth studying.

Since starting her account, Maiia has launched a Style Guide, a Lookbook, and SATC Map. All of them expand the archive’s universe. “Every format solves a different problem,” she explained. “Instagram is about emotion and immediacy, guides and maps create context, the lookbook builds structure and depth.”

Through these projects, she has also built a bridge between preservation and participation. Many of the items she documents can still be found or purchased, whether they are true vintage pieces or modern recreations. Her work allows other fans to experience Carrie’s world not only by seeing it but by wearing it, collecting it, and reinterpreting it in their own lives. The archive does not just remember; it invites revival!

It is easy to forget that fandom labor is labor. The research, verification, and design behind a post can mirror the rigor of an editorial team. Monetization, for Maiia, was never about revenue just because. It was about infrastructure.

“The revenue isn’t about profit; it’s about sustainability. It allows me to treat the archive as a long-term cultural project rather than a hobby.”

She has turned her fandom into a self-funded preservation effort that treats Carrie Bradshaw’s style as cultural text. It is a model of what fan scholars now call curatorial fandom, where the fan becomes both archivist and editor, shaping collective memory one post at a time.

The comment sections on @carriebradshaws_outfits read like footnotes. Followers debate designers, timestamp scenes, and share their own strong opinions. Maiia’s role has shifted from collector to conductor.

“It’s become a very genuine and thoughtful community,” she said. “Many followers contribute, they send me sources, screenshots, or help identify designers. It feels almost like a collective research project built on curiosity and love for Sex and the City.”

That is fandom at its most evolved form, what she now calls collective intelligence.

“When I started, I thought fandom was about enthusiasm. Today I see it as a form of collective intelligence, people coming together to research, analyze, and reimagine a shared obsession. It’s no longer passive; it’s curatorial.”

In other words, it is no longer just love. It is stewardship.

When I asked what she has learned from studying someone else’s style so closely, she shared, “You can dress like Carrie, but that doesn’t make you her. Everyone has their own visual DNA, and that’s what true style is about.”

What started as fantasy at age twelve (when she first watched Sex and the City), has now become something much bigger and very real. “Back then, I admired her,” Maiia said. “Now, I study her. Fashion used to be my dream language, now it’s my professional one.”

That shift, from fan to archivist, from consumer to custodian, might be one of the most powerful transformations fandom can offer.

When Maiia talks about what’s next, she hints at something “extraordinary” and “never imagined before.” But even now, her work already feels like a prototype for how fandom can evolve, not just preserving pop culture but contextualizing it.

In an era when content scrolls and disappears, she is building something lasting. In a culture obsessed with trends, she is documenting timelessness. Maybe that is what fandom becomes when it grows up. Not just a reflection of love, but a record of it.