In an oral history in Variety to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Devil Wears Prada, Emily Blunt – who plays the arch and dedicated first assistant Emily Charlton to inimitable editor-in-chief of fictional magazine Runway, Miranda Priestly (played by Meryl Streep) – said she never expected her lines to be quoted back to her for the rest of her life. Ten years on and “I’m just one stomach flu away from my goal weight,” and “I’m sorry, do you have some prior commitment? Some hideous skirt convention you have to go to?” remain as quotable as ever.

The film, released 20 years ago in 2006, made Blunt a star. The story of an earnest and ambitious university graduate, Andy Sachs (played by Anne Hathaway), navigating her first job amid the idiosyncrasies, hierarchies and landmines of a fashion magazine has become a cult classic, a time capsule and a fable. Endlessly analysed, the film remains a lightning rod for discourse around toxic bosses, grind culture, losing your identity to work, bad boyfriends (it’s now universally agreed that Andy’s sad-sack boyfriend Nate was the worst), and a paean to a long-lost moment in media and fashion. Plus, there is no better movie makeover montage than Andy’s metamorphosis from “lumpy blue sweater” to chic Fashion Person. You bet she was wearing the Chanel boots. Patricia Field’s costuming for the film – including US$1 million worth of Chanel – remains unparalleled when it comes to fashion on screen.

Loosely based on a novel by a former assistant to Anna Wintour, the long-time editor-in-chief of American Vogue (“We love fiction at Vogue,” Wintour once drily told a late-night host, while she also wore Prada to a Devil screening), the film portrays a very different time. This was before the financial crisis, before the great media fragmentation and well before TikTokkers were on the frow (fashion speak for front row). Magazine editors were the ultimate tastemakers (and had lavish budgets!) Devil also showed the inner workings and power of the fashion industry. As Streep – who played Miranda Priestly with icy majesty, instilling terror into underlings and rivals with one raised eyebrow or quietly dropped bon mot – memorably points out in her iconic monologue around cerulean blue, fashion is serious business.

“That blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs, and it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room … from a pile of ‘stuff’,” she says, coolly demolishing Andy’s initial disdain for fashion details.

As Lauren Tapper, co-founder of womenswear label Harris Tapper, notes, the film did much for how fashion is viewed. “It showcased the economic power of the fashion industry (which is often dismissed as frivolous) and highlighted how creative decisions shape the zeitgeist, influencing culture far beyond the runway. The cerulean blue monologue? Unforgettable,” she says.

Fashion remains a big business, but a much changed one. A slew of memoirs released last year such as former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter’s When the Going Was Good and Michael Grynbaum’s Empire of the Elite, which tells the history of Condé Nast (publisher of Vanity Fair and Vogue), chart the shifts in this corner of the publishing world. Yet while magazines might not wield the same power amid cutbacks and fragmentation, influence remains. There is American Vogue’s transformation of a once-sleepy society event into the culturally powerful Met Gala, for one. In 2025, Wintour stepped down as editor-in-chief of US Vogue after 37 years to focus on her global chief content officer role at Condé Nast.