‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’: Loose fit, by design

“Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking.” The line that defined a generation returns, two decades on — if not in words, then in spirit — as ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ gets a second fitting. And yes, gird your loins, but mostly for ‘nostalgia bait’.

The original raised a generation of publishers, writers and fashion aficionados (myself included), marinating reality in one-liners and immaculate tailoring. Imagine my surprise, then, at my first day in the newsroom: feature writers, it turns out, dress normally and talk about the weather over samosas too!

The sequel attempts to ground its — albeit largely recycled — narrative in a drably lit realism, humanising characters while giving space to the slow death of publishing, the rise of AI, and the peculiar chokehold of tech-bro magnates.

Inspired by a book written by a former assistant to Vogue high priestess Anna Wintour, the parallels remain unmistakable: Elias-Clarke Publications mirrors Vogue’s Condé Nast, and Miranda Priestly’s (Meryl Streep) quiet ambitions echo Wintour’s own 2025 elevation to global chief content officer. Wintour has long embraced the films as her myth, famously wearing Prada to the first part’s premiere.

We pick up with Anne Hathaway’s Andrea “Andy” Sachs returning as a features editor at Runway (the film’s Vogue). She arrives having apparently made the Federal Reserve “sexy” in her stint in “real” journalism.

Miranda, glacial and immaculate as ever, either does not remember Andy or chooses not to, as Streep remains the film’s most impeccably cut asset: every glance lands, every pause slices.

We also meet Miranda’s new set of “Emilies” (assistants) — because learning names is for civilians. ‘Bridgerton’ alum Simone Ashley’s Amari is cutthroat and exquisitely dressed, and there’s also ‘Charlie the chair’ (Caleb Hearon; one of the finest comedians of our generation).

Emily Blunt’s Emily Charlton returns with her marquee surgical British bite, now firmly lodged within Dior, dialled up to near-Cruella de Vil excess — less rounded, more razor, and clearly having the most fun. This Emily is pantomime-villain cruel — save for a few perfunctory flashes of humanity — and spends her days extracting gifts from her Musk-Zuckerberg-Bezos chimera of a boyfriend, dispatching orders like a German headmistress.

Stanley Tucci slips back in as Nigel, immaculate and not a day older.

The film’s idea of humour occasionally feels dated, nowhere more so than in Andy’s nerdy, anxious East Asian assistant, Jin Chao (Helen J Shen), who seems written for an era before cancel culture — and not in a clever, subversive way, but simply for worse.

Bravely, the film’s bleakest joke is the reality of print media: after a story sours, Miranda agrees to a multi-page feature to appease advertiser Dior, even as she grapples with social media metrics and likes; elsewhere, magazine gloss thins as budgets shrink.

Yet, for all its texture, something doesn’t quite fit. Without the implausible grandeur and deliciously toxic glamour of the original, the sequel often feels muted. One might expect evolution; one gets… refinement.

And the fashion — astonishingly — falters most. Camp slips into cartoon, while “quiet luxury” reads like cerulean-coloured deadstock of drab. Still, the performances are bespoke, even when the script feels slightly off-the-rack.

By the end, Miranda bends. She collaborates with Andy, concedes, even hangs her own coat! In making her more human, the film also makes her less Miranda — smoothing out the very edge that once defined her.

Every beat feels pre-approved, pre-packaged, and painfully predictable — a film assembled, not created. As Ms Priestly would say, ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ is not groundbreaking (don’t be ridiculous, Andrea!). But it doesn’t have to be. That’s all.