With its quartet of feisty female friends, New York setting and endless stream of cocktails, the new series Cashmere Mafia is set to pick up right where Sex And The City left off.

Ally McBeal star Lucy Liu appears to slip comfortably into Carrie Bradshaw's Manolo Blahniks with her role as a well-dressed publisher with a tumultuous love life.

Cheers: Cashmere Mafia stars share a penchant for cocktails just like Carrie Bradshaw's gang

The show, which is expected to be picked up by Channel Four later this year, also stars Bonnie Somerville as a cosmetics executive, Frances O'Connor will play a Wall Street executive and Miranda Otto completes the quartet as a hotel-firm boss.

"The comparison [to Sex and the City] is understandable," admits Cashmere Mafia executive producer Darren Star.

City dwellers: the series is also set in New York

Glamour: Sex and the City's stylist Patricia Field is now in charge of the Cashmere Mafia wardrobe

But he insists that the show is more than just a copy of Sarah Jessica Parker's hit show: "Thematically, this is more of a drama about what it's like being women in the workplace and how that intersects with their personal lives."

But the new girls on the block already have strong competition when it comes to filling the gap left by Carrie's gang.

Call of the wild: Brooke Shields, 24's Kim Raver and Lindsay Price in Lipstick Jungle

Lipstick Jungle, a new series based on Candace Bushnell's best-selling novel, will debut in the US in February and will also chronicle the lives of New York City friends.

Brooke Shields takes up the role of a film executive, 24's Kim Raver will play a magazine editor-in-chief and former 90210 star Lindsay Price is a designer.