What is it about Field"s costumes that makes them so divisive? The half-Armenian, half-Greek, US-born fashion renegade has always been about individuality not trends, a mixing of styles and a bending of rules. Although now she is known as the woman who dressed Carrie Bradshaw, she was a stalwart of the New York underground scene. She ran shops frequented by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, Patti Smith and Debbie Harry, and was a fixture on the ballroom scene, as well as an incubator for young, diverse design talent. Her store, she writes in a new memoir, became a "global destination for freaky fashion. People came from all over the country and abroad to see what tricks we had up our neoprene sleeves".