“The last hurrah, for a golden age of fashion magazines” the enduring appeal of The Devil Wears Prada
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What is the significance of 'The Devil Wears Prada' 20 years later?
Author Anna Carey, good afternoon.
Hello.
Anna, 20 years on, there's a sequel to the film The Devil Wears Prada, which they're ingeniously calling The Devil Wears Prada 2, and it's out on Friday. And people will have noticed there's a lot of hype around this because the original has become, hasn't it, kind of this cultural touchstone, weirdly. Just to establish your credentials to talk about this, you've worked in and you also, you do love a glossy fashion magazine, don't you?
I do. I mean, it's a guilty pleasure as a Well, that's true. I do not really believe in guilty pleasures. But yeah, even from my teenage years, I could both like see that the fashion industry is very unethical.
How does Anna Carey describe her relationship with fashion magazines?
But I love fashion shoots and I love fashion magazines. And I still have a subscription to the French edition of Elle magazine. Like I'm still engaged in it in a critical way sometimes. But yeah. You know, this is something that I find, it's catnip to me. Anything set in a magazine, anything about a magazine, anything with the fashion shoes in it, I'm there.
Despite yourself. Exactly. So I think people also have a kind of complex relationship like that with the original Devil Wears Prada. Just remind people really briefly first what it was about.
What is the plot of 'The Devil Wears Prada' and its main character?
So it's about this girl called Andy Sachs, who's played by Anne Hathaway. And she's a recent graduate and she's turned down a place at Stanford Law School to forge a career in journalism. But the only job she could get is assistant to Miranda Priestley, who is the editor of Vogue. I mean, runway magazine. which is a thinly disguised version of Vogue. And despite knowing nothing about fashion or indeed having bothered to look at the magazine before she got the job, I have feelings about this lack of professionalism, she gets the job with Miranda Priestley, who's played by Meryl Streep. And it's a kind of almost a Faust story where you see, is Andy going to sell her soul to be part of this glamorous world where everyone's very ruthless and...
And where Miranda will, as it turns out, you know, stop at nothing to keep her throne.
And Miranda, it was roughly inspired by Anna Wintour. And Anna Wintour, for people who don't know, she basically ran fashion, didn't she? Yeah. Ran magazine for a long time and still very powerful.
She was the editor of American Vogue and now she stepped down from that role. But she's like the, you know, chief creative queen of Condé Nast, which are the massive publishers that publish Vogue internationally.
Extraordinary power in the industry as well with designers and everything else. Basically, they would all do what she told them to do, roughly.
For years. And I actually, I think this is what's interesting in that the film is a snapshot of sort of the last hurrah of that sort of print magazine editor. Like there's a bit where a designer does a sort of presentation of his forthcoming collection that isn't even, you know, it's not even finalised yet. And she gives her verdict on it.
What parallels exist between Miranda Priestly and Anna Wintour?
And Stanley Tucci's character says to Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci is Nigel, who's kind of the creative director, art director of the magazine editor. says her opinion is the only one that matters. Now, that is not the case for anyone in sort of legacy media now. You know, the landscape has changed so much, but this film is a sort of snapshot. You know, not necessarily a very accurate snapshot all the time, but in that sense... But those glossy magazines had incredible power, incredible money.
Now... I suppose fashion has a lot of it doesn't age well and movies from the 90s, 90s, noughties, a lot of them don't age well. Is the original film regarded as problematic in aspects of it now? How it deals with the whole weight and body image thing is a bit, probably you wouldn't do it now, would you?
That's the bit that has really, in terms of, you know, I don't think they'd do it now. Now we'll see, because, you know, I haven't seen the new film yet and it's very embargoed, but... Yeah, there's a lot of stuff about Anne Hathaway supposedly, essentially being fat.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the significance of 'The Devil Wears Prada' 20 years later?
0:00–0:41
2
How does Anna Carey describe her relationship with fashion magazines?
0:41–1:16
3
What is the plot of 'The Devil Wears Prada' and its main character?
1:16–2:59
4
What parallels exist between Miranda Priestly and Anna Wintour?
2:59–4:33
5
How does the film reflect the power dynamics of the fashion industry?
4:33–6:14
6
Is 'The Devil Wears Prada' considered problematic in today's context?
6:14–7:58
7
How has the fashion magazine industry changed since the film's release?
7:58–9:45
8
What can we expect from the sequel to 'The Devil Wears Prada'?
9:45–9:56