Looking Back at the 2006 Premiere of The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada 2 press tour is moving at anything but a glacial pace. Over the last few weeks, stars Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway—who are reprising their roles as imperial fashion editor Miranda Priestly and fish-out-of-water former assistant Andy Sachs—have spread word of the forthcoming sequel far and wide, bopping from Mexico City to Seoul in a bevy of fresh-off-the-runway fashions.

The media blitz will end in a bang on Monday night at the New York premiere—an event sure to draw in marquee names across fashion and entertainment. But the first premiere was a different story, and promoting The Devil Wears Prada was a much smaller endeavor when it premiered 20 years ago. While red carpets today are far more of a production than they were back in 2006, there was perhaps another factor at play when it came to the first movie. “Well, everybody was afraid of Anna on the first one, so we couldn’t find any clothes,” Streep told Anna Wintour and Greta Gerwig in Vogue’s May 2026 cover story.

The film originally premiered at the 2006 L.A. Film Festival. Hathaway attended in a strapless yellow satin dress from Prada (naturally), while Connie Britton, Jeff Goldblum, and Parker Posey also walked the carpet. The team took the film to overseas festivals, too, with Hathaway, Streep, and Stanley Tucci attending Venice and Deauville following the premiere.

But the biggest hoopla came out of New York, where the cast assembled for a proper celebration. Hathaway wore a crimson gown with a plunging cowl neck, while Emily Blunt opted for a knee-length magenta dress with a lace-trimmed neckline and a coordinating sash.

Here, revisit the 2006 premieres of The Devil Wears Prada.