Last night I finally watched Devil Wears Prada 2; not in the cinemas, as I kept telling myself I would, week after week, before finally realising it was no longer showing. No, I watched it online from my bedroom… which has a certain irony paralleling the film’s plot.
It took me a while to step outside of my critical mind; for a long time I was distracted by the clichés which the scenes were drenched in. It felt like the outfit montages were shallow and only served as a throw-back to the first film; Andy’s personality felt a little too idealistic and the upbeat quips a little too forced. Miranda had lost so much of her gravitas and was fed to us as just another boomer who couldn’t keep up with the changing times. And, though it feels cruel to be critical of this, time has clearly taken its toll on the actors across the board. The film tried too hard to mimic the pithy dialogue and speedy transitions of its predecessor, which it felt like the actors were just not able to recreate. Yet, I wonder if these things, intentionally or not, actually add depth to the plot. Don’t get me wrong… it was very clearly a film with the driving interest of entertaining its fans, but there was still a plot that hit home for me and, I think, many millennials and those of us younger generation who are just old enough to remember the fading golden years of the 90s and 00s before the iPhone took root, when you could still hang up on someone by snapping you flip-phone shut.
In the glee of returning cast members, outfit montages, and a Miranda-Lady Gaga feud, there ran an undercurrent of melancholy nostalgia, and a sadness that the world seems to be ‘losing its soul’. Nobody buys magazines anymore, but nobody really reads online content anymore either. Art and artistry are dying. Not just in fashion – in all the arts, journalism included. Instead, we defend the use of AI images and writing, which plagiarise the work of human artists and steal their livelihood along with it. Runway, as big as it once was, is managing to survive, but it is clearly not the empire it once was. It’s an analogy not just of the real fashion industry, but of society around us. Rome is crumbling, and we feel helpless to do anything but stand and watch as industries fall and work opportunities in the arts vanish. The scene where Miranda leaves the building after talking with Benji, who assures her that the world she once knew is fading into obscurity, pressed on a wound I didn’t know I carried. The deserted alleyway plastered with the names of fashion icons which once ruled the material market, felt like a ghost-town of the cities we knew. Like they emptied around us when we weren’t looking, and one day we realised that we, like Miranda, are the ghosts which still haunt them.
It feels rich that I write with such melancholy myself. Not so much because I am of the youngest of the millennials and of the forerunners of Gen Z, but because growing up, I despised fashion and materialism. I was very much like Andy in the first film, who looked down on people who made such fuss about what scrap of cloth they put on their back. I cared more about learning to juggle a soccer ball than how many calories I ate, and when I worked as a personal trainer, waged war against diet culture that oppresses women’s health. So, in many ways, the new film actually showcased good changes in time and society (and the old guards’ struggle to keep up with them). It also made me realise that what I loathed in my youth was not any particular industry or the people who ran them, but the darkness within humans who thoughtlessly consumed fashion, which made these industries gods. And these gods gave us what we wanted, far more than we bargained for; they gave us things to strive for. Beauty standards, fashions standards, online aesthetics, organic lifestyles… things, ideas, that will make us whole.
The mindless consumption of materialism did not die with the magazine, it has merely shapeshifted. Now we rapidly consume images and click-bait captions. Fast fashion is more of a problem than ever, and worse, it seems to have become an allegory for our society. We spend more money on fast and cheap clothes, beauty and household items that nobody, realistically, needs, than what people spent on unreasonably luxurious clothing brands in the era of high fashion. We thought we killed a toxic culture, but in reality we just made it harder to recognise. We gutted the fashion industry of its art and integrity, and kept, even amplified, all of the negative and harmful effects – we just moved it online and made it easier to worship in secret.
The film obviously doesn’t delve as far as I have into the bleak realities of an online world. While it nods towards a crumbling empire, it maintains a hopeful outlook. Andy refuses to accept that this is just the way things are. The ending of the film doesn’t pretend to be a final solution; the world is still changing and the future is not certain, even in the respite of a happy ending for now. They do what there is for them to do – they keep making art. Miranda keeps editing, Nigel keeps designing, Andy keeps writing. They practise their art, and they roll with the punches in order to keep doing it. They adapt, but more importantly, they adapt together. The end of the movie sees characters solidify old friendships and open up to new ones. These two things are pillars of our humanity: we create, and we do it together. In real life, where writers and photographers and designers don’t have an established empire like Runway to carry their dreams, the idea still relates. Keep creating art, and solidify old friendships while opening up to new ones. Love what we do, and love the people around us – even the prickly Miranda Priestlys.
Devil Wears Prada 2 was not iconic like the first film, but by the time I reached the ending I was so thankful that it didn’t try to be. I was thankful that we got a happy ending, and that the gang was back together. I was happy that Andy remained annoyingly idealistic and naïve. I was happy that we weren’t left wondering. The ending of the first movie had a certain poignancy, even if it didn’t go quite how I wanted (that boyfriend was a man-child). It was good for the film; staying true to your morals often means taking the harder road on your own and saying goodbye to snazzy outfits and fancy workspaces, and hello to the fluorescent lighting of working life. But we’ve all learnt that ourselves, haven’t we? That life is hard, that endings are usually messy and, at best, bitter-sweet. I am happy that Devil Wears Prada 2 gave us every cliché, happy thing we loved about the first movie, with the added gift of a happy, neat, ending, prompting us to keep working with what we have alongside one another.
The Restless Sojourner 
Leave a comment