The Devil Wears Prada is more about fashion writ large than it is about clothing, at least that was my impression upon reading Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel for the first time this year. That means that when actual garments do appear, they’re not only descriptors but signifiers that anchor the characters by status and taste.
When she arrives at Runway magazine, DWP’s protagonist Andy Sachs, a recent Brown graduate who dreams of a career in “serious” journalism, looks down her nose at fashion, which she perceives as frivolous. Her anti-fashion stance is a way to communicate that she’s above it all.
But it doesn’t last. Joan Didion, a one-time Voguette, published a packing list in 1979 that looks positively ascetic next to what Andy took to Paris, about 10 months into her tenure, when she’d come around to the concept that she needed to play the part, and that one’s intellect is not diminished by caring about how you look. As would be expected, her boss Miranda Priestly’s wardrobe was largely luxury. But Runway staffers mixed high and low, and obsessed over indie brands like Katayone Adeli, Habitual, and Seven, as well secondary lines such as D&G and Marc by Marc Jacobs that were such a big part of fashion when the book’s action takes place.
We’ve been talking a lot about the human form in advance of this year’s Met Gala, the theme of which is “Costume Art,” and it’s something Andy fixates on in the book as well. “I couldn’t focus on anything except her body,” she says while observing yet another colleague with an exposed midriff and perfect proportions. Sheer shirts and second-skin suedes and leathers left little to the imagination, even at the office; the requisite stilettos elongated the silhouette. Runway staffers epitomize the Y2K aesthetic that has been designers’ focus of late, but let’s hope those spike heels stay stuck in the past.
Below, I’ve paired looks from the 2000-2003 collectsions with quotes from the book. Use them to create your own must-have list, as a grail for shopping eBay, or simply to enjoy a walk down memory lane.
Andrea “Andy” Sachs
“I was working at Runway magazine for chrissake—simply putting on anything that wasn’t torn, frayed, stained, or outgrown wasn’t going to cut it anymore. I pushed aside my generic button-downs and ferreted out the tweed Prada skirt, black Prada turtleneck, and midcalf length Prada boots that Jeffy had handed me one night while I waited for the Book.”
“I dumped the contents of one bag onto the floor beside my desk and began sorting. There were Joseph pants in camel and charcoal gray, both long and lean and low-waisted, made from an incredibly soft wool. A pair of brown suede Gucci pants looked as though they could turn any schlub into a supermodel, while two pairs of perfectly faded Marc Jacobs jeans looked like they were custom cut for my body. There were eight or nine options for tops, ranging from a skintight ribbed turtleneck sweater by Calvin Klein to a teeny, completely sheer peasant blouse by Donna Karan. A dynamite graphic Diane Von Furstenberg wrap-dress was folded neatly over a navy, velvet Taharai pantsuit. I spotted and immediately fell in love with an all-around pleated Habitual denim skirt that would fall just above my knees and look perfect with the decidedly funky floral-printed Katayone Adeli blazer.”
“The second, even more bulging bag spilled forth a stunning array of shoes, bags, and a couple of coats. There were two pairs of high-heeled Jimmy Choo boots—one ankle- and one knee-length—two pairs of open-toe Manolo [Blahnik] stiletto sandals, a pair of classic black Prada pumps, and one pair of Tod’s loafers….I slung a slouchy red suede bag over my shoulder and immediately saw the two intersecting C’s carved in the front, but that wasn’t nearly as beautiful as the deep chocolate leather from the Celine tote that I threw on my other arm. A long military-style trench with the signature oversize Marc Jacobs buttons topped it all off.”
“The expression on her face was one of passive disgust….I did a quick review of myself and wondered what had triggered the reaction. Short-sleeve, military-style shirt, a brand new pair of Seven jeans I’d been sent free from their PR department simply for working for Runway, and a pair of relatively flat (two-inch heels) black slingbacks that were to date the only nonboots/nonsneakers/nonloafers that allowed me to make four-plus trips to Starbucks a day.”
“Luckily working at one of the biggest fashion magazines in the country (the job a million girls would die for!) has its advantages, and by 4:40 p.m. I was the proud borrower of a knockout floor-length black Oscar de la Renta number, provided kindly by Jeffy. Closet maven and lover of all things feminine. (Girl, you go black-tie, you go Oscar, and that’s that.’) […] The fashion assistants had already called in a pair of Manolos in my size, and someone in accessories had selected a flashy Judith Leiber evening bag with a long, clanking chain.”
“Might I need to accompany Miranda to a bistro and stand, mummy-like, in the corner while she sipped a glass of Bordeaux? A pair of cuffed, charcoal gray Theory pants with a black silk sweater by Celine. Attend the tennis club where she’d receive her private lessons so that I could fetch water and, if required, white scarves in case she schvitzed? A head-to-toe athletic outfit complete with bootleg workout pants, zip-up hooded jacket (cropped to show off my tunny, natch), a $185 wife-beater to wear under it, and suede sneakers—all by Prada.
And what if maybe—just maybe—I actually did make it to the front row of one of those shows like everyone swore I would? The options were limitless. My favorite so far (and it was still only late afternoon on Monday) was a pleated school-girl skirt by Anna Sui, with a very sheer and very frilly white Miu Miu blouse, with a particularly naughty-looking pair of midcalf Christin Louboutin boots and topped with a Katyone Adeli leather so fitted it bordered on obscene.”
“Somehow I’d made it to the backseat of the limo before Miranda did, and even though her eyes were currently fixating on my chiffon skirt, she hadn’t yet commented on any one part of the outfit. I had just tucked the Smythson book into my Bottega Veneta bag when my new, international cell phone rang.”
“My first Parisian fashion show was a blur. It was dark, that much I remember, and the music seemed much too loud for such understated elegance, but the only thing that stands out from that two-hour window into bizarreness was my own intense discomfort. The Chanel boots that Joceyln had so lovingly selected to go with the outfit—a stretchy and therefore skintight cashmere sweater by Malo over a chiffon skirt—made my feet feel like confidential documents being fed through a shredder.”
“Logically it would seem that a seven-hour flight in steerage decked out in a pair of skintight leather pants, open-toe strappy sandals, and a blazer over a tank top would be the utmost in hellish travel experiences. Not so.”
“After a particularly embarrassing run-in with a feather-covered tank top and patent-leather thigh-high (as in yes, over the knee) boots, I finally selected an outfit on page 33, a flowy patchwork skirt by Roberto Cavalli with a baby-T and a pair of biker-chic black boots by D&G. Hot, sexy, stylish—but not too dressy—without actually making me look like an ostrich, an eighties throwback, or a hooker. What more could you ask for?”
“I found my parents looking immensely pleased to see me. We hugged, and after they got over the initial shock of what I was wearing (skintight, very faded D&G jeans with spike-heeled pumps and completely sheer shirt—hey, it was listed in category, miscellaneous; subcategory, to-and-from airport, and it was by far the most plane-appropriate thing they’d packed for me.)”
Emily Charlton
“I noticed that Emily had a lime green scarf woven through the belt loops on her cargo pants, just peeking out from underneath the white T-shirt.” […]
“We pulled up in front of a typical Fifth Avenue doorman building: immaculate sidewalk, well-kept balconies, and what looked like a gorgeous, warmlys lit lobby. A man in a tuxedo and hat immediately came to the car and opened the door for us and Emily got out…. [She] pulled a leather Louis Vuitton key chain from her Gucci logo tote and handed it to me.”
“[Emily] moved quickly down the hallway toward our offices, her hips swishing back and forth, back and forth in the skintight tan Seven cords she was wearing. She’d told me the day before that I should seriously consider getting a pair or 10, as these were among the only jeans or corduroys that Miranda would permit people to wear in the office. Those and the MJ’s were OK, but only on Friday, and only if worn with high heels….she dropped her Gucci logo tote on her desk. She began unbuttoning her very fitted leather blazer, a coat that looked supremely inadequate for the late-November weather.”
“[Emily] double-clicked on a pair of black pants on Style.com, where she’d spent months scouring ideas for her upcoming trip.”
The Clackers
“ ‘She. Is. Such. A. Bitch! I cannot deal with her any more. Who does that? I mean really—WHO DOES THAT?’ hisses a twenty-something girl in a snakeskin skirt and a very mini tank top, looking more suited for a late night at Bungalow 8 than a day at the office.” […]
“A tall, thin girl emerged from behind the glass doors. A calf-length leather skirt hung from her hips.”
“[Allison] wore black leather pants, as soft as they were tight, and a fuzzy (or was it furry?) white tank top strained across her breasts and ended two inches above her bellybutton.”
“After a half hour of such ruminations, another tall and impossibly thin girl came into the reception area. She told me her name but I couldn’t focus on anything except her body. She wore a tight, shredded denim skirt, a see-through white button-down and strappy silver sandals.”
“As I sat in my swivel chair, trying to remember everyone’s name, the prettiest girl I’d seen all day swooped in. She wore a rose-colored cashmere sweater that looked like it was spun from pink clouds.”
“The floor was always dark when I arrived, and I took the same route to my desk every morning. To my left when I walked in was the advertising department, the girls who most loved adorning themselves in Chloé T-shirts and spike-heeled boots.” […]
“By eleven everyone had checked everyone else out, making notations of who had scored a pair of the new Theory ‘Max’ pants or the latest, impossible-to-find Sevens.”
Miranda Priestly
“Emily carried the wicker basket to Miranda’s office and carefully, reverentially, placed it on the plush carpeting beside me. She sat down and began removing the skirts one by one and laying them in a circle around us. There was a beautiful crocheted skirt in shocking fuchsia by Celine, a pearl gray wraparound by Calvin Klein, and a black suede one with black beads along the bottom by Mr. de la Renta. There were skirts in red and ecru and lavender, some with lace and others in cashmere. A few were long enough to sweep gracefully along the ankles, others were so short they looked more like tube tops.
I picked up a midcalf, brown silk beauty and held it up to my waist, but the material covered only one of my legs. The next one in the pile reached to the floor in a swirl of tulle and chiffon and looked as though it would look most at home at a Charleston garden party. One of the jean skirts was prefaded and came with a gigantic brown leather belt already looped around it, and another had a crinkly, silver-material overlay on top of a slightly more opaque silver liner.”
“[Miranda] was on the phone when I entered the office, her snakeskin Gucci trench draped across the top of my desk.”
“The belted leather jacket cinched her already tiny waist and complemented the perfectly fitted pencil skirt she wore beneath it. She looked dynamite.”
“Now that I had been there long enough, it seemed as though the honor of ordering Miranda’s clothes would fall to me. Four times a year, like clockwork, she flipped through look books like they were her own personal catalogs and selected Alexander McQueen suits and Balenciaga pants like they were T-shirts from L.L. Bean. A yellow sticky on this pair of Fendi pencil pants, another placed squarely over the Chanel skirt suit, a third with a big ‘NO’ plastered across the matching silk top. Flip, stick, flip, stick, on and on it went, until she had selected a full season’s wardrobe directly from the runway, clothes that had most likely not yet even been made.”
“Only when the entire wardrobe was completely ordered, shipped, snipped, and delivered expressly to her bedroom closet by chauffeured limousine would Miranda relinquish last season’s clothes and heaps of Yves and Celine and Helmut Lang would find their way—in garbage bags—back to the office.”
“The fact that everything was a size zero was a bit of a problem. Mostly we distributed the clothes to anyone with preteen daughters, the only ones who had a shot in hell of actually fitting into the stuff. I pictured little girls with bodies like little boys strutting around in Prada lipstick skirts and slinky Dolce & Gabbana dresses with spaghetti straps.”
“I’d pulled off the clothing order with only a few noticeable screwups. She hadn’t exactly been psyched when I showed her everything I ordered from Givenchy and accidentally pronounced precisely as it appears—give-EN-chee. After much glaring and a few snide comments, I was informed of the correct pronunciation, and everything went reasonably well until she had to be told that the Roberto Cavalli dresses she’d requested hadn’t been made yet and wouldn’t be ready for another three weeks.”
“Chanel had delivered a one-of-a-kind, floor-length red beaded sheath while Miranda was in Europe.”
“I logged today’s clothes in (one Missoni blouse, two identical pairs of Alberta Ferretti pants, two Jil Sander sweaters, two white Hermès scarves, and one Burberry trench coat).
“[Miranda] was wearing one of her classic Chanel suits—round collars with fur trim—and a looping strand of extraordinarily large pearls.”
“She looked stunning in a short, shirred velvet cocktail dress.”
