With the sequel to one of the most beloved chick-flick institutions finally hitting cinemas after a 20-year gap, Managing Editor Benjamin Wong shares his thoughts on The Devil Wears Prada 2 and ruminates on the legacy of its 2006 predecessor.
I was 12, onwards turning 13 when I picked up my copy of Lauren Weisberger’s chick lit magnum opus, The Devil Wears Prada. At the time, the movie had already been out for two years, and interest in the pop culture subconscious had largely fizzled into a general malaise after the mad rush of its self-perpetuating marketing machine. Even then, I could vividly recall the depths of the indentations that the blockbuster release had left in its wake, with the now emblematic devil’s pitchfork stiletto appearing as a standee in practically every major movie theatre across town.
But beyond its casual appeal as one of the most outstanding summer titles that year, what director David Frankel failed to account for was The Devil Wears Prada’s suggestive influence over an impressionable generation of millennial aspirants who had hoped to one day do the fashion week rounds like Miranda and Andy did. Ferried between show venues in private chauffeur executive sedans behind sunglasses the size of dinner plates, the aloof indifference of being ‘in the know’ typified the archetypical fashion insider: cold, imperious, and self-assured, supping from a fount of definitive authority that could make or break a business by simple virtue of proximity. As the inscrutably fearsome editor of Runway had once famously said, “Everyone wants this,”. I became a product of the film’s seductive compulsion, with my love for The Devil Wears Prada proving so impassioned, I wound up embarking upon a career in media ten years in the making.
While never intentionally positioned as a cerebral vehicle, The Devil Wears Prada somehow found itself platforming an industry’s collective aspirations at the time, blowing wide open the doors leading into the enigmatic guarded gardens where haute couture thrives from delicately pruned and manicured trees, while revealing the true sprawl of the fashion industrial complex that spanned runways to department store racks. No longer was the business of making, selling, or marketing clothes thought of as being trivial or trifling; it was an unrelenting multi-billion-dollar machine, with magazine editors as its most fearsome adjudicators.
Serving as much of a reflection of fashion’s brutally fast-paced exuberance from the time as it did an observation of professional self-discovery ala Audery Hepburn’s 1957 classic, Funny Face, David Frankel’s 2006 depiction of the industry zeitgeist endeared itself to an audience that had, up to that point, rarely been offered the opportunity to participate in its dealings.
Twenty years down the line, neither media nor fashion would recognise the glamorous excess of its former self if it had to look over its proverbial shoulder in retrospect. Long gone are the days where the gravitas of magazines served as the fount of stylish authority; in their place, brand managers holding the sharp end of a guillotine over the necks of a print industry in its sunset years, where talk of earned media value and advertising spend overwhelms all suggestions of journalistic liberty, leaving traditional media to limp on as a ghost of its forbearers. The loci of influence shifts from print to digital, platformed by a content creator market that could commandeer audiences at a more personal level than traditional publications could ever hope to accomplish. Never a more opportune time to revisit our fictitious fashion darlings, then.
The Devil’s Reckoning: our review of The Devil Wears Prada 2
The story’s arc charts its beginnings from a very literal fall from grace on Andrea’s part, who, despite paying her dues as a decorated journalist since her departure from Runway and joining a newspaper knee-deep in investigative journalism, inadvertently finds herself and her team made redundant through text as part of drastic cost-cutting measures under new corporate ownership. On the other end of the pond, Miranda faces her own comeuppance in kind when she finds herself tried in a court of public opinion after green-lighting a glowing endorsement of a fast fashion brand that, to nobody’s surprise, was found to be using sweatshop labour. In barely fifteen minutes, the stage is set against an all-too-familiar backdrop that some of us may have gleaned from news ticker reels in passing.
For industry practitioners in the real world, both scenarios hit close to home, stripping bare the veneer of glossy perfection far enough that the gnarly state of fashion’s present state comes to light in all its dire circumstances. Job instability, misinformation, media deflection–it’s a prognosis of an industry condition that has long been suspected but never openly admitted in fear of bruising too-big egos. Whereas one may have readily called out the first film’s preposterous grandiosity, its successor skims close to reality.
Faced with a decline in credibility and less-than-favourable optics, Elias Clarke owner Irv Kravitz orchestrates Andrea’s eventual return to Runway as its new features editor, much to Miranda’s consternation. And things only take a turn for the worse when the once Machiavellian editor receives a dressing-down from none other than former assistant-turned-Dior brand manager, Emily, who remains committed to her derisive hauteur in a clear show of role reversal.
As an opportunity to reminisce, what veteran fans will find especially enjoyable to do is to observe how the returning cast of characters have all done a fair bit of growing up since the year Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie charted on Billboard. Miranda’s cut-throat sardonicism is now tempered by political correctness as dictated by HR policy, while Nigel remains her ever-composed, if not privately wistful, right hand who bemoans how the grand scale of his work in glossies has been reduced to pandering for fleeting clicks online. It’s in the culling of their combined influence despite their prevailing roles as eminent tastemakers that is truly indicative of time’s lengthy passage as they become increasingly relegated to obsolescence, even if some viewers may find Miranda’s lack of bite or acquiescence to supplication unbecoming.
And once again, it is Andrea’s infinite capacity for optimism and faultless moral compass that the film derives its levity, punctuated by Emily’s impeccable comedic timing and infinitely quotable caustic wit. As yin complements yang, these two former assistants are the sum of an inseparable whole for the franchise.
The risk of nostalgia is the failure to truly replicate its formula for success, but mercifully, fans of the first film will be rewarded for their astute familiarity with the source material. Reworked for a contemporary lens, several scenes are clear homages to the original, whether it be in Andrea’s return to the cafeteria for a bowl of clam chowder or her visit to the venerated Closet of lore, which to my surprise, still endures in all of its spectacular inventory in the face of diminishing advertising budgets. Suppose one should account for creative liberties in a body of fiction, no matter how close to the truth its satire breaches.
Yet surprisingly enough, it is the film’s newer accoutrements where you will find its weakest links. Emily’s equally reticent replacement Amari, played by Bridgerton breakout star Simone Ashley is woefully underserved by the brevity of her lines, while Andrea’s Australian love interest is undercooked to the point of being served practically blue. Does she deserve a shot at love beyond Nate? Obviously. But maybe that search shouldn’t necessarily end with Peter. Let’s not even begin to open the Orientalist can of worms that is Jin Chao.
But credit where it’s due, an unrecognisable Justin Theroux deserves his flowers and more for his uncanny ability to embody the soulless push for efficiency and progress that his Jeff Bezos caricature enthuses about so readily. With talk of purchasing Runway as a gift to Emily, one simply cannot help but chuckle at how the Bezos-endorsed MET Gala this year, alongside potential whispers of a wholesale buyout of Conde Nast by Amazon, landed right in the satirical crosshairs of The Devil Wears Prada 2.
Then, there’s the matter of music. Mind you, its predecessor helped launch Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall’s career into mainstream prominence with her single, Suddenly I See, accompanying the film’s opening montage, while choice picks from Madonna and U2’s discography brilliantly adorned an original score by Theodore Shapiro. Chic and expressive, its capacity to carry and suffuse emotion where required made the soundtrack as much of a key highlight as the script itself.
I’m disappointed to report that its successor is considerably less impactful in its delivery. Shapiro’s touch, while prevalent, fails to yield the expected impact that you would have waited for a crescendo to denote. Instead, concessions were made seemingly based on the merit of star power, which explains the involvement of Dua Lipa, RAYE, and above all else, Lady Gaga, in the sequel soundtrack. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing by default, of course. Rather, the soundtrack falters in its inability to anchor any truly exceptional musical moment within the film itself, most notably through Lady Gaga and Doechii’s sterilised, contrived strain of house-pop ballroom music, which, despite being engineered as an undeniable seasonal earworm, ultimately lacks the cultural force and production gravitas of Vogue by Madonna.
While film may still be very much a reflection of the state of fashion media as we recognise it now, there is decidedly less soul-searching in this sequel than there was before. Instead, The Devil Wears Prada 2 takes clear aim at more than a handful of hotbed insider fears and depicts them in its signature blend of overdramatised, high-definition extravagance for a film that, while fun, remains visibly self-aware of the reality that it parodies. This sequel is as much entertainment as it is a timely critique of the encroaching sway of Silicon Valley dollars in the realm of popular culture. And it is that willingness to say the quiet part out loud that has made what could have been a pale imitation of its progenitor into a standalone success worthy of its plaudits, even with weaker stitches at the seams.
This article first appeared here
Note : The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.
