Although the 2007 spring collections won't be unveiled in New York for another 10 weeks, the city is already in the grip of fashion fever. The cause? David Frankel's The Devil Wears Prada, which was adapted from Lauren Weisberger's roman a clef about her tortuous stint as assistant to Anna Wintour, US Vogue's iconic editor-in-chief. It is not released until Friday in the US, but the movie is generating word-of-mouth as the best film ever made about the fashion world, though it's equally about journalism and the costs of careerism.
Many will say it's about the clothes. Patricia Field, the film's stylist, told the New York Post she reckons over 100 designers were represented in the film's wardrobe and that at least $1 million worth of clothing was used. Since her budget was a skimpy $100,000, most outfits and accessories were borrowed. They include a $30,000 Dennis Basso mink, a $25,000 Fendi Persian lamb coat, and a $15,000 Fred Leighton carved lava rock and diamond ring, all worn by Meryl Streep, who plays the despotic Miranda Priestly. Compared with these, her co-star Anne Hathaway's $2,005 Yigal Azrouel ivory angora coat and $995 Chanel thigh-high boots are jumble sale items.
At the New York premiere at the Loews Lincoln Square Theatre last Monday, Streep and Hathaway, who plays the put-upon ingenue Andy Sachs, wore Valentino. Streep appeared in a shimmering white dress and shawl. Hathaway swept the floor with an effulgent red number that offered a glimpse of the breasts that were the subject of the night's most tabloid-friendly anecdote (she said co-star Stanley Tucci smacked and elbowed them during shooting). Sarah Jessica Parker showed up in a low-cut silvery Dolce & Gabbana dress with an empire waist. Though Broadway actress Tracie Thoms, cast as Andrea's best friend, carried a gold Prada purse, it was otherwise slim pickings for the eponymous fashion house.
Published in 2003, Weisberger's novel became a bestseller, despite its breathless prose and lukewarm reviews. Its appeal lay in the idea that Miranda was inspired by Wintour. In the novel, Miranda, the editor-in-chief of Runway, is a bullying boss who turns her withering gaze on Andy if the milk in her latte isn't frothy enough. She demands a cooked breakfast on her desk when she arrives but because Andy never knows when she is due she has to order a new one every few minutes; reheating is not an option.
Now 56, the real London-born editor has been keeper of the jewel in Conde Nast's crown for 18 years, her success making her the dominant (and most feared) arbiter in US fashion. With her severe bob and permanent sunglasses, the rail-thin Wintour, who famously wore Chanel micro-mini skirts throughout her pregnancies, exudes an aura of unapp roachability, though reality can be different. When I was interviewed for a job at Vogue in 1991 and was ushered into her office for a brief audience, she was pleasant and encouraging. I didn't get the job but she would nod to me or say hello when I ran into her later at movie screenings.
Vogue insiders say my experience is typical of Wintour in her later years. 'She has mellowed since meeting [her boyfriend] Shelby Bryan,' says one former colleague. 'She smiles now and has been seen to laugh. And the sunglasses come off more since she has had her demi-facelift. But I think she has been very rude to a lot of people in the past, on her way up - very terse. She doesn't do small talk. She is never going to be friends with her assistant.' One US Vogue intern was famously told never to make eye contact with Wintour or to initiate a conversation. One day the terrified girl witnessed the editor tripping up in the corridor but was too scared to offer help. She stepped over Wintour's prone form and carried on walking.
'The thing about Lauren's book and this film is that I do not think fiction could surpass the reality,' says a leading UK fashion editor. 'You only have to see Anna's requests for seats at the New York shows to get an inkling of how art in this instance is only a poor imitation of life. Most of us just ask for seats in the first or second row - she has her people request a seat from which she will not have to see or be seen by specific rival editors. We spend our working lives telling people which it-bag to carry but Anna is so above the rest of us she does not even have a handbag. She has a limo. And she has her walkers [Vogue staff members] Andre Leon Talley and Hamish Bowles, whose main job is to carry her bits around for her.'
Wintour's magazine is more than just a fashion bible; recent issues have included pieces by Donna Tartt and Joyce Carol Oates as well as an interview with the new Chilean president Michelle Bachelet. She is a uniquely powerful figure and her influence stretches from Hollywood to the East Coast elite in media and fashion. When US Vogue hosted Anglomania, a tribute to British fashion that took place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last month, the guest list included Jennifer Lopez, Kate Moss, Donald Trump and Diane von Furstenberg. Insiders say almost all of them allowed Wintour to decide what they wore. A few years ago she was the only editor who refused to bow to Armani's suggestion that fashion magazines should include more photoshoots featuring their clothes in case they reconsidered where they spent their advertising dollars.
Wintour has, however, been careful to acknowledge the film and dismiss suggestions that she was annoyed by Streep's icy portrayal. Wintour even attended the New York premiere, where according to Streep she was 'very, very cordial' when they were introduced. Wintour's spokesman issued a statement the following day: 'She thought it was very entertaining. It was satire. What's not to like?'
Wintour is careful to maintain her mystique and unflappable persona. In her review of the Wintour biography Front Row for New York magazine last year, Nancy Schoenberger observed that author Jerry Oppenheimer 'lacks a keen eye for Wintour's visual acumen and trend savviness. He simply reduces her to a chinchilla-clad Cruella de Vil.' Her description is ironically echoed by Miranda's first appearance in the film - seen stepping from her chauffeured car outside her midtown office, she's an elliptical flash of black, white and silver (her hair colour). Andy, in contrast, is presented in a shapeless sweater, a tweed skirt and black tights, which make her a pariah in the halls of Runway. Selling herself to the devil, as it were, this Midwestern idealist starts dressing as a fashion victim to fit in. Director Frankel, who favours rat-a-tat-tat montages, mimics fashion spreads by showing her walking to work on Manhattan's begrimed streets in a series of increasingly outré outfits.
Many New York fashionistas think the comedy is a fair portrait of the stressful conditions they work in. 'It's the first film I've seen that got it right,' says Charla Krupp, executive editor of SHOP, Etc. 'It's been depicted so many times by outsiders in a way that was off - even Robert Altman's Prêt-à-Porter. But The Devil Wears Prada has the nuances of the politics and the tension better than any film - and the backstabbing and sucking-up.'
'The film brilliantly skewers a particular kind of young woman who lives, breathes, thinks fashion above all else,' says Joanna Coles, the former Guardian writer who now edits US Marie Claire. 'New York is peculiarly full of those young women who are prepared to die rather than go without the latest Muse bag from Yves Saint Laurent that costs three times their monthly salary. It's also accurate in its understanding of the relationship between the editor-in-chief and the assistant - an enormous gulf that's bigger here than in Europe.'
The movie's stars have been quick to deny the Wintour connection. Streep has said she based her characterisation on people she knows in the fashion industry and the screenplay is markedly different from its source material. Hathaway told New York magazine: 'I'm glad [Wintour] saw the movie and said it was entertaining, and I think that lent it a degree of authenticity. We've always said we're not making a character assassination. That's not who I am.'
Asked if she thinks Streep's portrayal sympathetic, Coles says, 'She comes across as real. What was most interesting to me was watching her wrestle with a very demanding job and a husband who wants her around more. The great scene in which Andy [delivering the mocked-up magazine to Miranda's townhouse] comes up the stairs and catches them in the middle of a row seems to replicate rows that are going on across New York City every night in the home of any working couple. And it's replicated on a lower level with Andy and her boyfriend having their own conflict. That conflict is often raised when women find a job they feel passionate about.'
In that respect, the film resembles Working Girl, the Eighties corporate comedy that looked at how a woman learned to cope with her demanding female boss. 'Andy becomes like the most rabid tabloid reporter because she can get what Miranda needs her to get,' Coles says. 'I think the story is less about fashion than about Andy discovering she's very capable. She figures out she wants to put her skills into a different kind of journalism. But it's through the fashion world and its amazingly cut-throat environment that she hones those skills.'
'I'd go so far as to say the film makes Miranda a great role model,' says Krupp. 'There's a lot of positive things I picked up from her. Reading the book, you sympathise with Andy. In the movie, you identify with Miranda.'
Coles argues that Andy is not being opportunistic but embracing her own ambition. 'I think you have to know what you want. Predominantly, the fashion magazine business is still run by women and much is made of the antagonism between them. But if you look at the way the major Wall Street banks are run, no one says, "God, those guys are really ruthless." They just say they're ambitious and successful and celebrate them for being like Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. That feels very old-fashioned to me.'
Andy eventually repudiates Runway and its culture in favour of a crusading newspaper. This suppor ts the view of former fashion critic Ginia Bellafante, who wrote in the New York Times last week that The Devil Wears Prada is one of the few fashion films that asks us not to celebrate fashion but to disdain it. Neither Coles nor Krupp concur.
'It's a homage to the fashion world,' Coles says. 'There's a wonderful bit where Miranda explains why the blue of Andy's frumpy jumper is that particular blue because it's something Oscar de la Renta did four seasons ago, and this is how it's come down to the high street. It's a good deconstruction of the fashion business, and an appreciation of fashion as an enormous global business that a lot of people don't take seriously or understand.'
'I don't think the movie disdains fashion at all,' Krupp says. 'Andy does buy into it - when you put on those clothes, you can't help but feel great about yourself. That's what great clothes do - they make you feel you can conquer the world.' If that is indeed the moral of the movie, it sounds suspiciously like a Vogue editorial. The Devil Wears Prada might look like a satire but the main message is one that Anna Wintour would be proud of.
Looks familiar?
The film's main players, and their real-life counterparts
Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep)
High-powered editor of fictional fashion magazine Runway who bullies and intimidates her staff on a daily basis. And she never says thank you.
Anna Wintour
High-powered editor of US Vogue since 1988. One of the most important people in the fashion world and an early champion of John Galliano and Stella McCartney.
Andrea 'Andy' Sachs (Anne Hathaway)
Naive journalism student who thinks that working as Miranda Priestly's assistant is the first step to getting her dream job on the New Yorker.
Lauren Weisberger
Former assistant to Wintour who wrote The Devil Wears Prada, a bestselling roman a clef inspired by her stint on Vogue. She has denied that Priestly is based on Wintour.
Nigel (Stanley Tucci)
Likeable gay fashion guru at Runway magazine and Miranda's right-hand man. Later becomes Andy's mentor and gives her a makeover.
Andre Leon Talley
Vogue's editor-at-large and a fixture on the New York fashion scene. Tall, always immaculately dressed, he is apparently Wintour's confidant and sits next to her at shows.
Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman)
Outwardly affable and easygoing chairman of the company that owns Runway. Knows Miranda's value to the magazine and is keen to keep her happy.
Si Newhouse Jr
Media billionaire, one of the richest men in America. Interests include TV companies, Random House and Conde Nast, which owns Vogue, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker.
· The Devil Wears Prada is released in the UK in the autumn