Design Series: The fashion of ‘The Devil Wears Prada’
Life and Art from FT Weekend
Forhecz Topher
4.6 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 12 April 2024
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For the third episode in our design series, we’re talking fashion design through the lens of the 2006 classic The Devil Wears Prada. The film is having a moment on the internet. We’re here to revisit it with fresh eyes, and with two experts in fashion: Jo Ellison, the editor of our luxury magazine HTSI, and Rob Armstrong, our men’s style columnist (OK, he’s also our US financial columnist). The film stars Meryl Streep as a powerful magazine editor based on Anna Wintour, and Anne Hathaway as a young, idealistic journalist who becomes her assistant. It’s a Y2K fairy tale about the fashion industry, magazine politics and power. How accurate was the film about fashion then, and why is it still resonating now?
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We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap and we’re on X @lifeandartpod. You can email us at lifeandart@ft.com. We are grateful for reviews, on Apple, Spotify, etc.
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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):
– The Devil Wears Prada is available on Netflix and Disney+ in the UK, and HBO/Max and Hulu in the US.
– Rob wrote his most recent fashion column about power dressing in The Devil Wears Prada: https://on.ft.com/4cS25Yr
– Jo recently interviewed the actor Cillian Murphy. Read the interview here: https://on.ft.com/3vOnCRi
– You can follow Jo Ellison on Instagram @jellison22 and on X @jellison. Rob is on X @rbrtrmstrng.
– Rob recommends the late André Leon Talley’s book The Chiffon Trenches. You can read the FT review here.
More or Less recommendations:
– Rob wants to see more womens’ college basketball. This FT piece is on how star Caitlin Clark is changing women’s sport: https://on.ft.com/3Jbfehw
– Lilah recommends the Apple TV documentary, ‘Steve! (Martin) A Documentary’. You can read Rob’s interview with Martin here: https://on.ft.com/440txzm
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The FT Weekend Festival is coming back, and will be in Washington, DC, on May 4! Speakers include Nancy Pelosi, Jo, Rob and Lilah! To book tickets, go to ft.com/festival-us and use our exclusive discount code: weekendpodcast.
Special FT subscription offers for Life and Art podcast listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial, are here: http://ft.com/lifeandart
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Clips this week are from 20th Century Studios
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopoulos, and this is our Friday chat show. |
| 0:10.1 | This is also the third episode of our special series on Design, and to combine the two, we have |
| 0:15.2 | decided to return to an often quoted film. We'll be looking at fashion design through the lens |
| 0:20.2 | of the 2006 classic The Devil |
| 0:22.4 | Wares Prada. You probably remember this film. Anne Hathaway plays Andy, a young journalism graduate |
| 0:28.4 | who becomes assistant to the frightening fashion editor Miranda Priestley, played by Merrill Streep. |
| 0:34.3 | Andy considers herself a serious reporter with no interest in the fashion world, but she's |
| 0:39.5 | working for the equivalent of Anna Wintour now, and as she gets closer to the top, she finds herself |
| 0:44.0 | indoctrinated. So you don't read Runway? No. And you have no style or sense of fashion? |
| 0:53.6 | Well, um, I think that depends on what you're... |
| 0:58.2 | No, no. That wasn't a question. |
| 1:01.3 | This movie was huge at the time and is having a renaissance now with memes across social media. |
| 1:06.5 | And in a true sign of our times, there's even a Devil Wears product musical coming to London later this year with music by Elton John. |
| 1:13.2 | So we wanted to return to it with some of our esteemed fashion experts. |
| 1:17.0 | We will talk about what the film actually says about fashion then and how it lands today. |
| 1:22.0 | Shall we get into it? |
| 1:23.1 | I'm Lila, and that wasn't a question. |
| 1:25.9 | Here with me in New York, he's just got those Harry Potter proofs to the twins. It's U.S. financial commentator and men's style columnist Rob Armstrong. Yo, I was, you know, I was once a serious young journalist. Oh, were you? Weren't we all? And then, and I wrote about money, and then I ran into Joe Ellison. |
| 1:44.5 | Yeah, was your Miranda Priestley. |
| 1:45.8 | And she turned me into a style columnist, ruining my reputation for seriousness forever. |
| 1:52.2 | Beautifully introducing our HTSI editor, Joe Ellison, who's on the line. |
| 1:57.0 | She is wearing the Chanel boots. |
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