May The Bridges We Burn Light Our Way

Emily and Andy arriving in style at Lake Como © 20th Century Studios

The sequel to the 2006 landmark masterpiece The Devil Wears Prada not only is a welcomed addition to Hollywood’s cinematic fashion universe, but an expertly stylish injection of well written Millennial-driven feminist chic.

The Devil Wears Prada 2, picks up exactly 20 years after its predecessor, in a world where the Arts, in this case Fashion and Journalism, are at the mercy of algorithm and monetization.

“Work smarter, not harder”, a quote from industrial engineer Allen F. Morgenstern, mistakenly attributed to a more famous STEM alumi Gates or Jobs, has often been parodied in times of financial recession. The post-modern Millennial promise of success, seeded by our Boomer and Older Xennial parents, who celebrated every single one of our milestones as if we (them and us) were in the run for a Nobel Prize, came crushing down by the end of the 2000s.

The 2006 film The Devil Wear Prada came out just two years shy of the 2008 financial crisis that devoured every big company that hadn’t gambled in establishing an online presence (or had gambled too much). Suddenly, the job market demanded ever changing standards of competition, and the poor schmucks who had already spent four plus years in college couldn't even get a badly paid internship without a masters degree. We see glimpses of this in the first instalment of the The Devil Wears Prada, when our millennial hero Andy, iconically portrayed by Oscar-winner Anne Hathaway, arrives at the faux Vogue standing, Runway magazine, desperately looking for her first entry level job.

After an electric establishing scene that sees the halls of Runway transform from mildly snooty to chaotically frantic in the presence of the protagonist du jour, legendary Miranda Priestly (played by an even bigger icon of cinema and simile to Oscar awards, Meryl Streep), Andy gives her famous monologue about being a smart worker, as a way to convince the editor in Chief of Runway to look past her appearance and focus merely on her sterling academic credentials.

I look back at that scene with a sense of nostalgia for a time in which it was still possible to find a professional footing during the honeymoon period between the Arts and the Online Digital Revolution. Having a website was still looked upon as a quirky add-on rather than a necessity, with social media barely existing as place were college kids would "poke" each other. Fashion and Journalism were not only established and reputable institutions, but thriving in such an impactful way as to bring a runaway bestseller based on both to Hollywood.

What The Devil Wears Prada 2 does exceptionally well is showing (and sometimes telling) how Fashion, Journalism and the Arts in general (a very definitive Art History cameo comes forth during the second act of the movie) have survived our post-post modern world. By deconstructing the ethos of “work smarter, not harder”, what is left of Fashion or Journalism is often at the mercy of likes and shares, and a vague sense of critical integrity accounted for when a PR crisis needs to be navigated.

But the film is wary of straying too far into cynicism in its modern critique, offering heartfelt moments of one-on-one recognition among fictional peers, bridging generational gaps between all genders who see themselves evolving beyond the labels (and fashion) that they have given to themselves.