Journal correspondent Alara Arslan reviews the most anticipated fashion film of the last twenty years: tastewashing, career instability, and glamorous celebrity cameos, does this film really have it all? And why are industry insiders, students and professionals alike, so ignited in opinion by it? Let’s find out.
I watched The Devil Wears Prada 2 the same week I came across Kyle Chayka’s piece in The New Yorker on something he calls “tastewashing”. I wasn’t expecting the two to talk to each other — but they did, loudly. And honestly, as someone about to enter this industry, the conversation they had together made me a little uncomfortable. In a good way.
Chayka’s argument is essentially this: tech companies, and AI companies especially, are using aesthetics, curation, and the language of “good taste” as a PR strategy. Instead of showing up as what they are (data-hungry, automation-driven corporations), they wrap themselves in art, design references, and cultural sensitivity. The message is: “we’re not just technology, we’re culture”. We have taste. Trust us.
When I watched the sequel with that idea in my head, I couldn’t unsee it.
The original The Devil Wears Prada came out in 2006, when fashion magazines were still the authority. Miranda Priestly wasn’t just a character, she was a symbol of institutional power. The film was uncomfortable because it was honest: ambition has a cost, validation from powerful systems leaves marks, and fashion is seductive in ways that can quietly destroy you.
The sequel is set in a completely different landscape, Runway is struggling. Publishing feels unstable. Journalists are replaceable. Billionaires circle media companies deciding what survives and what doesn’t. Andy comes back to Runway not out of passion, but because not even a successful journalism career guarantees a stable job.
If that sounds bleak, don’t worry, everyone is wearing an incredible coat while it happens. And that’s exactly where the film gets interesting. It turns the discomfort of the current fashion and media landscape into fun, frivolity, and feathers.
Every crisis unfolds in a beautiful interior. Every conversation about collapse is softened by perfectly tailored coats, witty one-liners, and archival fashion references. The film reiterates that the media is dying, at risk of being bought by tech billionaires, while making that decline look aspirational, and actually, quite fun. The exact same irony the fashion industry has always run on.
Fashion and media have always walked this line. The tension between commercial interests and cultural or ethical values isn’t new, it’s practically in the job description. Magazines have always had to sell ad space alongside feminist cover stories. The sequel makes this contradiction more visible, and more glamorous, than ever. The film doesn’t pretend there’s a solution; the happy ending is that Andy carries on working at Runway, which is either hopeful, deeply funny, or rather unsatisfying depending on how you look at it.
Even Miranda Priestly is softened. In the original she was frightening because she represented a system willing to sacrifice your humanity for excellence. In the sequel, she’s reframed sympathetically, a woman fighting to preserve standards in a shallow digital world. Her cruelty becomes sophistication. Her control becomes legacy. Her toxicity becomes… a vibe.
And this shift matters because it mirrors what we’re being presented with as students preparing to enter fashion and media. Brands don’t just sell clothes anymore, they present themselves as intellectual and emotional experiences. AI companies use cinematic campaigns and artistic collaborations to present themselves as creative partners rather than the automation threat they also represent. Taste has become branding. Aesthetics have become armor.
The most telling dynamic in the film, for me, was Andy’s dynamic with Miranda. Twenty years later, she still emotionally shrinks in her presence. She still craves validation from the same system she once walked away from. The film even jokes about it “Stockholm called, they want their syndrome back“ , but the joke accidentally names the real problem: the mythology of Runway is too seductive to escape, even when you know better.
As editors, students, and people who care about this industry, perhaps this is why we are so fascinated with this film and why it has solicited such a strong reaction. It’s an uncomfortable depiction of the reality of both fashion and media industries. It exposes fashion at its most contradictory and hypocritical, yet somehow still makes you want to dress up, fall in love with it, and willingly romanticize the chaos. It reflects the exact dilemma all of us who live and work in this industry deal with every day: questioning the system we are in while still wanting the front row seat. I realize that the movie doesn’t offer an answer, or a happy ending, because for now, there isn’t one. Maybe putting on a nice coat and carrying on with your day, doesn’t seem so bad after all.
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Cover image
- Courtesy of Disney UK
