Sarah Jessica Parker Fully Embraced Going Gray & Her Hair Looks Beyond Stunning

Sarah Jessica Parker established herself as an icon while portraying the inimitable Carrie Bradshaw, and a huge part of that was Carrie's signature look. The "Sex and the City" lead was instantly recognizable thanks to her blond curls, which Parker maintained for most of her career in the spotlight, other than a few dances with brunette here and there. But in October 2026, the TV star debuted a totally different look, stepping out with gray hair that completed her whimsical aesthetic. 

Gilbert Carrasquillo & Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty

Attending the opening night of New York City's American Ballet Theater, Parker donned an extra-long braid woven with romantic satin bows that matched her Simone Rocha gown. Probably executed by the actor's hairstylist Serge Normant, the rear-grazing braid featured a volumized crown of mostly gray hair, which seamlessly blended with Parker's go-to brond. Highlights and lowlights brought both depth and lift to this radiant gray-blending look. Clearly, Sarah Jessica Parker has no time for gray hair haters.

"Grey blending is about working with your natural grey rather than trying to completely cover it," colorist Zara Winfield told Elle U.K., explaining that the gray is "softened" with techniques like toning, along with the highlights and lowlights, to achieve this natural look. Parker has been rocking the gray herringbone highlights technique on and off for a few years, but this October outing has taken her look into a bolder, statement-making direction, and we're here for it. "With Sarah Jessica Parker's hair, the natural hair is embraced and blended through the lighter pieces, creating a really soft, dimensional result," Winfield confirmed. She emphasized that the goal of gray blending is for gray and silver pieces to be worked into the larger color story instead of being concealed from view.

No stranger to gray roots, Sarah Jessica Parker has delved into her relationship with graying in the past. Speaking to Allure in 2022, she shared that revealing her grays wasn't so much an intentional statement as it was a result of her simply running out of time for a base color. In other words, it's no big deal. She also explained that she generally doesn't make beauty or styling decisions to cater to the opinions of other people, which aren't a priority. "When I walk out the door, I want to feel OK — according to my standards," she went on. "But you know how you feel when you feel most like yourself, whatever that means. I'm not without vanity. I guess I just don't care enough about everybody else's opinion." 

In her Allure interview, Parker also made it clear that she doesn't want praise for becoming a celebrity who proudly shows off her gray hair. "It became months and months of conversation about how brave I am for having gray hair," she said of the fanfare that followed one of her earlier public appearances with gray roots. "I was like, please please applaud someone else's courage on something!" Her attitude towards this natural shift in hair color mirrors her thoughts about aging in general: "I just don't understand why I'm supposed to be spending that much time thinking about it." 

So while her Rapunzel-inspired braid wowed us all with its main character energy, the "And Just Like That..." alum might not have actually thought too much into the gray 'do, besides the fact that she felt like wearing it. And that's an approach to graying — and hair in general — that we can get behind.