Last week, I saw the new Devil Wears Prada movie, and I’m still thinking about it. It’s not quite as good as the first one, of course, because that is a very high bar indeed. But it’s a worthy successor, and I was glad to be among the first to see it so that I could form my own opinion before all the other idiots had a chance to write about it on the internet. Sorry not sorry. I gotta write about something, you know?
****
There are a few new characters but the story still focuses on the four main characters (Miranda, Andy, Emily, and Nigel). They are the same people we remember, but all of them have grown and changed, for better and for worse, in the 20 years since the first movie. Miranda is still imperious and demanding, but she’s no longer the devil. She’s mellowed enough that she even allows her first assistant to remind her that she can no longer say and do things that were acceptable in the 80s and 90s and early aughts. 20 years ago, Emily and Andy would have had their heads handed to them had they dared to comment on Miranda’s behavior.
The sequel echoes themes from the original - betrayal and loyalty, the value of beauty and art and glamor, the moral issues around extreme wealth, the balance between work and life or if such a balance is even possible. And it touches on what it’s like to be a person and a professional in the year 2026. There are heartless billionaires, cliched but nonetheless utterly believable. There is downsizing and rightsizing and cost-cutting and evil tech bros not so subtly threatening to replace everyone and everything with AI.
*****
The filmmakers did a good job of visual contrast between Runway 2006 and Runway 2026. Miranda’s office is still luxurious, but there are signs that Runway HQ is fraying a bit around the edges. Miranda assigns Andy to a cluttered, bare-bones office, which we know is meant to be a punishment - but the old Runway suite would never have had a cluttered space in the first place. There are fewer people and less activity and less glamor - the new Runway looks like any other modern open-concept office. It looks like a LInkedIn video depiction of a corporate “creative space.” It’s clean and bright and pretty, but it’s not awe-inspiring. There’s no mystique.
*****
One of the questions that The Devil Wears Prada 2 asks is how much of all of this - fashion, “lifestyle,” beauty - are we supposed to care about. Do we mourn the loss of the aspirational fairy-tale world of 7th Avenue and Milan and Paris and the Hamptons, or is it good riddance to all of it? I think it’s a little of both. In the original movie, when Nigel lectures Andy about Runway’s place in art and culture, we know that he’s sincere and that Runway really is a “beacon of hope” for him. I felt that way about fashion magazines myself when I was young. I loved Vogue and Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar and the whole world of high society and fashion and glamour that they presented in their beautiful, glossy pages.
Nigel is partly right about fashion. The visionary designers of the 20th century really were artists, even when they weren’t very good people (Coco Chanel, I’m talking about you, girl). Designers really did, and still do, fulfill the need for beauty and elegance in our lives. Couture is out of reach for almost everyone, of course, but its ideas filter down to the rest of us - as Miranda says, all the way down to that infamous lumpy blue sweater in that tragic Casual Corner clearance bin. A young person in a big city earning an entry-level salary can buy a designer-inspired dress or purse and feel connected to a world of beauty and possibility. What could possibly be bad about that?
Both movies answer that question, in different ways. In the first DWP, the bad part is (of course) unrealistic beauty and body standards. Perfectly normal Andy is the “smart fat girl.” Miranda rejects a photo spread of female paratroopers because they’re all “so deeply unattractive,” because in 2006, it was every woman’s job to be thin and attractive, no matter what else she might have accomplished in her life.* Poor Emily eats practically nothing to maintain her extremely slim figure, but even though she’s already reed-thin, she still hopes for that one stomach virus that will make her just a tiny bit thinner. No wonder she’s so grouchy all the time.
The fashion industry didn’t invent unattainable beauty standards, but they might as well have. Before the advent of social media, fashion magazines led the way in perpetuating and normalizing airbrushed bodies and faces. Fashion magazines foisted toxic diet culture on us. Vogue has a lot to answer for.
In the second movie, Runway’s dark side is farther upstream. After a 20-year absence, Andy returns to provide some serious journalistic credibility as the magazine tries to distance itself from a child labor scandal involving one of its most prominent advertisers. Meanwhile, the billionaires smell blood in the water, and they’re circling around like vultures waiting to snatch up the pieces if Runway doesn’t survive the scandal. The nepo baby finance bro billionaire is trying to “optimize” his late father’s media empire, and that includes stripping Runway down to the bare bones - Miranda, flying to Milan in COACH! - while the tech bro billionaire is trying to buy the magazine and by extension a place in the cultural hierarchy for himself and his girlfriend. Both of the billionaires are ready to dispense with as many of the humans behind the crown jewel that they’re fighting over, never mind that it’s human creativity and human blood sweat and tears that built Runway and made it a crown jewel worth fighting over to begin with.
A spoiler - things end the way most of us who love the original would have hoped. One more even better spoiler: Both of the billionaires lose.
*And thank God it’s not like that anymore, amirite? LOL.
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