BY MONICA CORCORAN
PHOTOGRAPHED BY ANDREW MACPHERSON
STYLING BY FREDDIE LEIBA

When it comes to style, Kristin Davis likes to go her own way. Never mind that other actresses give themselves over to stylists who put them in newsy couture and borrowed jewels for galas like the Oscars and the Emmys. At last year's Emmy Awards ceremony the free-spirited actress—a star of the designer-mad Sex and the City—sashayed past the photogs in a cocktail-length Badgley Michka she bought off the rack (ohmigod) and accessorized with a belt from her closet. "I'd rather make my own mistakes," she explains, "than be talked into something I'm not comfortable wearing."
     Her no-fuss look was a hit, and Entertainment Tonight pegged Davis as one of the evening's best-dressed stars. And though the one-time beauty queen hadn't been competing, exactly, she was happy. "I was like, 'All right! I did it myself,'" she says now.
     Davis's pals weren't surprised by the coup. At 37, the actress has "a real sense of herself on every level," says friend Melanie Shatner (daughter of William), who owns a boutique in L.A. "Her attitude has always been, 'This is who I am and this is how I dress.'"
     When she's acting though, Davis disappears into her characters. On Sex and the City—the groundbreaking HBO series now in its fourth season—she breathes life into naïve Charlotte York, a newlywed coping with infertility and her husband's sexual paralysis. And in these pages she re-created four legendary (and very different) brunettes. In a two-day photo shoot for In Style she transformed herself into a voluptuous Jane Russell and a First Lady-like Jacqueline Kennedy, channeles sexy Jaclyn Smith (from Charlie's Angels), and took on rocker Chrissie Hynde.
     "It was exciting to play four famous women in 48 hours," Davis says now. "But it wasn't easy. They are all so iconic. These are women and images I grew up with—they all have a place in history."
     The character she found easiest to inhabit was Jackie Kennedy. "She had this amazing style that was tasteful and conservative," she says. "She didn't try to set trends." The most challenging was Jane Russell. "I'm not into the hot-mama look," says Davis, laughing.

     On a sunny afternoon in L.A., Davis sits on the patio of the Hotel Bel-Air, down the road from the tranquil canyontop aerie she shares with her golden retriever, Callie. Fresh from the gym, she orders grilled swordfish for lunch. Healthy but not obsessive, Davis has what she calls a "sometimes I care, sometimes I don't" attitude toward dieting. In a green Om Girl top and a fawn leather jacket, the actress looks effortlessly pretty, her cocoa-brown mane settling into a perfect Veronica Lake curve that frames her classic features.
     "I think Kristin is one of the more beautiful women I have ever seen—she just can't look bad," says Sarah Jessica Parker. "In my opinion she's the prettiest when she has on no makeup and she's wearing jeans and a little sweatshirt."
     In Los Angeles, Davis favors jeans and flip-flops. A "homebody," in the words of her mother, Dorothy, she loves tending her garden, doing yoga and hiking near her house. Her favorite Friday night activity is throwing a casual dinner party for a handful of friends. Making a scene at a trendy hangout? Forget it, says Davis. "If I were in a situation where I couldn't swear or put my feet up," she says, "I would be unhappy."
     Still, there are times when the flip-flops have to go. In Manhattan, where Sex and the City is shot (and where she keeps an apartment on the Upper West Side), Davis's look—and life—are more structured. "I go out more when I'm in the city," she says. "I see as much theater as I can." Like Charlotte, she has also been known to shop her way up and down Madison Avenue. "I can walk into Prada and buy 10 outfits. When I'm in the mood to shop, I go all out," she says.
     And no wonder: Davis reports that New Yorkers expect to see her and fellow City girls Parker, Kim Cattrall and Cynthia Nixon "wearing heels and looking like style mavens"—even at the corner deli. While she won't go that far, Davis has splurged on fanciful pieces, including a pair of high-heel, lace-up boots by Louis Vuitton and a sheer chiffon blouse by Prada.
     It's a long way from Davis's early years in Columbia, S.C., where her parents are academics. When Davis was born in Boulder, Colo. ("the hippie capital of the world," she says), her mom was a 20-year-old student at the University of Colorado. Briefly married to a fellow student, Dorothy was divorced from him when Kristin was 2; they next year she wed psychology professor Keith Davis. When Kristin was 8, her parents moved to Columbia, where both took jobs at the University of South Carolina. Davis felt out of place in that city—"a place where you have to be well mannered and know how to cook, entertain and fix drinks for men." (Her household was more progressive—Ms. magazine was always on the coffee table, Davis says, "and my parents have a great, equal relationship.")
     In high school Davis sometimes dressed "like a hippie" in an Izod world. "It seemed like everyone in the South was blond and blue-eyed," she recalls. "I felt so dark, with my hair and olive complexion. I never wanted to be blond, but I definitely felt different."
     Acting saved the day. When Kristin was 10 Dorothy persuaded her to audition for a production of Snow White, and a "drama geek" (as Davis has put it) was born. Her love of acting and New York was fueled by yearly theater trips to the city with her father and stepsisters. "New York was so stimulating compared to where I lived."
     She studied acting at Rutgers University in New Jersey and after graduation found steady work in New York. She made her film debut in a horror pic (Doom Asylum) and won parts on soaps, including General Hospital.
     When Davis launched herself in Hollywood, though, it was another story. Casting agents told her she wasn't pretty enough. "At that time [1991], there was this aesthetic of the beautiful, sexy actress who was blond and bodacious, Davis remembers.
     Enter Darren Star (creator of Sex and the City). In 1995, Davis was cast as a scheming minx on Star's Melrose Place. After seeing her in a 1997 Seinfeld episode, he recognized Davis's comedic talent and tapped her to play Charloote on the show that brought concepts like "funky-tasting spunk" and "rear door" to prime time. "What I love about Charlotte," he says, "is that she's the quintessential beautiful girl who gets a pie in the face every time. And Kristin can pull that off—she plays it for real."

"I always felt more like Kate Jackson, but I always wanted to be Jacklyn Smith.
On that show, they were all tough girls, but glamorous too. I love that."

     During her first two seasons, "my role was basically to be shocked," Davis has said. "But following Charlotte's marriage to sexual underachiever Trey (Kyle MacLachlan), the plot thickened and Davis began to show her stuff as a comedian. "She constantly has to gulp and say, 'OK,' because she's put in absurd situations," says Star. "But she's always game for a challenge."
     If not for the life of a clotheshorse. Davis recalls, "At first I didn't understand why we has to spend so much time on the clothes. I would complain because we'd have five-hour fittings." Lately, though, she has begun to understand that Manolos and Fendi bags aren't just accessories—they're windows to a woman's soul. "I was wrong," she says. "Now I get it."
     "Charlotte's look has grown up over the years, and I think Kristin has become more sophisticated too," says Patricia Field, costume designer for Sex and the City. These days she likes to outfit Davis in classic, elegant designs from Narciso Rodriguez and Charles Chang-Lima. "She looks great in anything that accentuates her tiny waist, like a pencil skirt, because she has a gorgeous hourglass figure," Field says.
     If Davis's look has changed, her take on romance has not. She has had two relationships in the past six years ("one where I was the heartbreaker, and one where I was the heartbreakee," as she has put it), but ping-ponging between New York and Los Angeles hasn't exactly helped her social life.
     "I would love to fall in love," says Davis (whose exes include David Duchovny and Alec Baldwin). "But I don't believe you need a man to be happy." When the right guy does turn up, he'd better have a passport, hiking boots and—maybe—a parachute. After Davis turned 30, she says, "I decided I would start having adventures: travel to exotic places, jump out of an airplane, and just experience life." After solo trips to Java and Bali, Davis visited Africa last January for a monthlong safari. "My friends begged me not to go because they thought it might be dangerous," she says, laughing. "I said, 'Of course I can do it.' You read the guidebooks, you learn the phrases and you go."
     Davis's sense of adventure waned in 2002. On her current to-do list: sailing around Turkey and learning to ride horseback, a skill that may help her with yet another goal, inspired by Jackie Kennedy. "My favorite image of her is when she's in India riding an elephant... she's in a yellow dress and pumps. I love that," says Davis, who plans to pack her trunk for an elephant ride in India herself someday.

"I had to think about U2 while I was being Chrissie because they are my rock
and roll band. I just thought about my favorite U2 songs while I was posing."