Point. Game. Set. Match.

Thank you, Ms. Patricia Field.

Thank you for having Carrie wear "the naked dress" for her first official date with Mr. Big.

Thank you for your decision to have Charlotte don that pink strapless knee-length shift and Jackie-O sunglasses to Brady's first birthday party.

Thank you for Samantha's fleet of plunge-front, backless, come-and-get-me evening attire.

And finally, because I can't recall anything about Miranda's wardrobe that would elicit an-out-of-my-way expression of gratitude, I want to thank you for wearing this dress to the Britania Ball - an annual benefit to raise money for the New York City Opera aboard the ritzy Queen Mary 2 - in New York City last week.

Why, you ask?

By wearing for a second time in three months this too-tight, too-short, pink and black, looks-Missoni-but-I-hope-it's-not tube-dress with extended carpet-tassel skirt and a pair of whip-me-good dominatrix stilettos to a formal fundraiser, the famed "Sex and the City" costume designer proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was right not only to say implicit rules on age-appropriate and venue-appropriate dress exist but that these are rules to which we should cling long, hard and unwaveringly.

Look again -- unwaveringly.

Admittedly, this is an extreme example in every facet, including age, dress, event and expectation (I think it's only fair to hold a woman who's won multiple Emmys for her fashion sense to a higher standard), but sometimes it takes stretching the liberal "do-what-you-want-whenever-you-want" mantra to the very edge of exaggeration to get those last stragglers on-board the reason train.

And because I don't think it'd be very nice to leave you all on a negative note, not on a sunny Friday while I'm working from home in my jammies and you fools are stuck in twin-sets in cheap office chairs, here's an example of a woman right about Pat's age who's gotten the growing-old-gracefully groove down just right. Again.

Helen Mirren on the red carpet at last week's Cannes Film Festival