146: the devil’s toegate
The Devil Wears Prada and toe rings, ft. Liana Satenstein
This is an edition of For Your (Re)Consideration, the segment where I revisit things I didn’t like or I am ready to change my mind about. These are usually paywalled, but this one is too good not to share with everyone. Either way, you should upgrade your subscription if you haven’t already!
Overheated and unmotivated, I put The Devil Wears Prada on the television last Tuesday afternoon, thinking I’d have it on in the background while I aimlessly scrolled on my phone1 and eventually fell asleep. But five seconds into that delightful opening sequence, I was sitting right up and locked in. KT Tunstall; the contrast between the fashion girls lingerie and Andy’s Gap Basics; the repeated shots of women hailing cabs? Come on!
Based on Lauren Weisberger’s novel of the same name, The Devil Wears Prada follows Andy, a recent college graduate who lands a job at high fashion magazine, Runway (an analog for Vogue), as the second personal assistant to the magazine’s frosty editor-in-chief, Miranda Priestly (played to perfection by Meryl Streep). For me, and many others, The Devil Wears Prada, has been a sleepover/girls night staple since it hit the big screen in 2006 and has influenced many of our career journeys. Over the years, the film has been subject to a bit of revisionist history, particularly in regards to whether Andy’s choice to give her all to her new fashion job is really as egregious as her friends, family, and boyfriend want her to think. Through our girlboss and Super Intern tinted lenses, we came to a couple of new conclusions: Andy could and should have tried harder on her first day, and her boyfriend, Nate, was truly the villain of the picture.
The last time I watched this movie, about two years ago, this perspective had totally infiltrated my brain and I couldn’t help but being annoyed at both Andy and Nate. They were whiny babies! Watching this time around, I tried to keep an open mind and not be so quick to cast judgment on either character, keeping in mind that they were supposed to be twenty-two or twenty-three, fresh out of college. If you can’t be whiny at that age, when can you be?
But while I was keeping my eyes open for a redemption arc, I got something much saucier and spicier than that. The movie was in the third of its final third. Andy was in Paris with Miranda for the couture shows. Shots of her on the red carpet with Christian Thompson, the saucy New York mag writer played by Simon Baker, had been snapped (a sign that this movie is really Fantasy City!). This girl is on cloud nine! Dumped by Nate, she’s more open to Thompson’s skeezy advances and she goes to bed with him. Cut to the next morning. We get a shot of Andy’s foot and—wait, is that? Rewind. YES, INDEED IT IS! A TOE RING. Perched delicately on Andy’s second toe. I can’t tell you how shocked I was. I immediately texted a picture of the surprise cameo to friend of the Report,
, our reigning footxpert.2 What Liana has done for writing on the foot/footwear/adornment of the foot will be studied by scholars in the future. Liana and I were both so excited about Andy’s toe ring, that we had to get in a Google Doc and chat about it. It was perfect timing—the new cast members for the DWP sequel were announced the day after I rewatched.
It’s kind of an exciting time for the The Devil Wears Prada universe—they just announced the new cast members for the sequel last week. Lucy Liu—yes! BJ Novak? Questionable. Are you excited for The Devil Wears Prada 2?
I am excited for The Devil Wears Prada 2. Listen, the sequel is never as good as the first thing–but then again, maybe this one will be a banger? The original cast has signed on…and it tells the story about the very real can’t-even-expense-a-coffee era of print media. It seems like they aren’t glossing over its demise and trying to make it glam. It’s so funny…the first Devil Wears Prada was very…yes, you get low pay, yes you’re going to get stress migraines, yes you’re going to lose fluids and become estranged from your family…but it felt worth it and completely megawatt cool. Anyways, do I want to see Meryl as Miranda Priestly trying to suckle every last drop of advertising moolah to keep her mag alive? Keep that dream alive? You bet I do. It’s kind of honorable and, hey, that magazine is her life! You can’t pull the plug on your life.
Also, I saw this when I was in high school. (No one do the math…) I was in a small town and I wanted to leave. Honestly, this film–and I know for all you other writer people out there!—that was one of the catalysts that inspired me to move to New York. Corny but who cares…I’m here now.
There was a sense of the aspirational to the original that I just don’t think is possible with the new one!
Exactly but that is why I think it will be great: I imagine, there’s going to be an element of tragedy and sadness and some glam reckonings. Can we go and then do a recap? I’m already excited! Maybe we should rent it out…do an event…I love how the sauce is made.
Substack overlords, when you read this….NEVERWORNS x Consumption Report host The Devil Wear Prada 2 – the people will be there! I think this detail of you being inspired to move to New York by this movie is so important. I feel like for every girl with a fashion industry dream, this movie and the Teen Vogue Handbook was BIBLE.
I mean we grew up at a time when magazines reigned…!!! That was my outlet. That and TheFashionSpot.com, oy.
THEFASHIONSPOT.COM! That was truly a moment. So we’re here to talk about a particular toe ring I spotted on my recent watch of DWP but before we get to that, I’m interested in your take on the FASHIONS. I’ve seen this movie a million times and for some reason, this time around, the clothes stuck out in a way that they had never before. I thought it was interesting that Pat Fields had done the costuming. Her work on Sex and the City has become so influential—it’s perpetually on the moodboard. But the style in DWP doesn’t really have that kind of legacy. We get fed the “Are those the…Chanel boots?” meme all the time, but I don’t feel like people are really ever talking about what Andy was wearing.
Maybe now we can appreciate Andy’s style and the looks of DWP. I think any time someone does a film about the FASHION INDUSTRY, it is far more over the top than what it is actually like. It is one big throbbing caricature with a zillion feathers and like…baubles? But you have to dramatize anything to make it even more entertaining. I think DWP was created during a time when, yes, some of that drama was actually real but the actual Vogue office looks were probably actually more pared-back. I cannot imagine anyone walking into the office with a…honestly, I was about to say newsies cap but this was 2006 so anything was possible.
And as for people talking about Pat Field’s work on SATC more than DWP…SATC felt more down to earth and everyday. Ultimately those women were everyday women, so the clothes I think were more digestible even though, yes, there were strokes of sartorial insanity. Call it everyday aspirational. But DWP was one major blockbuster, so you have to be megawatt about it. Also people love to hate the fashion industry–it is easy to mock!—so I think DWP felt like an easy target to rip apart.
That makes a lot of sense. Andy’s style is aspirational but it’s also not hers. Everything is borrowed, imitative—she never really grows to love fashion but rather gets really good at pretending in order to survive. Even the one outfit she puts together without Stanley Tucci’s help is very cosplaying girlboss. Whereas in SATC, because it’s over multiple seasons, and Carrie is a certified fashionhead, there’s more of a sense of personal (if insane) style. DWP feels more costume-y in a way.
Silver screen baby, the silver screen!
This feels like a good segue for talking about Andy’s toe ring actually. Before we fully get to that, can you tell the uninitiated a little bit about your, dare I say, “foot fetish”? I’m actually really obsessed with how you’ve cornered the market on interesting writing about freaking the foot!
You know, I’m not totally sure what spawned the obsession but I think it was the thong heel that I wrote about in 2018…it was such a new thing at the time. No one was selling this naked shoe. Because no new product existed, my equally perverted foot friend, then-market editor Alexandra Gurvitch had to source…these busted foam Rocket Dogs.. Now, everyone and their mother aka The Row to Jessica Simpson (the shoes!) are making thong heels.
ANYWAYS…I digress…what I loved about that thong heel moment was just how bare the foot was. There’s a great image from a Raymond Meier shoot from December 1998 and it is just a close up of a foot in a royal blue Richard Tyler thong heel. I was mystified…just how out and in the open and naked and brash.. It felt flagrant, perverted, and raunchy. My feet aren’t beautiful, either. My mom has beautiful feet..slender toes…but I have like babushka bulbous potato-planting feet. And you know what? I was inspired by that thong heel and I began to wear my stubby toes out. I showed them to the world. Like who dares to wear their naked foot out in the open like that? It felt a bit sick–and I liked it…like flipping my middle digit.
GET MORE: LIANA ON THE FOOT
Let’s talk about the toe ring! As I texted you, in all my viewings of this movie, I have never once noticed that she’s wearing a toe ring in the morning after scene in Paris, when she wakes up in the writer Christian Thompson’s (Simon Baker) bed. I imagined that maybe I was watching some exclusive-to-streaming version of the movie because I was confused as to how the toe ring hadn’t dominated the conversation about this movie. But then I found this super funny article from the LA Times when the movie came out, where the writer, Booth Moore, is SO OFFENDED that there’s this shot of Andy wearing a toe ring. (And they really linger on the toe ring.) She imagines that it is a vestige of Andy’s “bohemian” past and insists that “no fashion magazine assistant or editor would don a toe ring.” Was she right?
If I remember correctly, I think I exploded when you sent me that article. What a find. Here is the thing…I could believe that no one was wearing a toe ring at Vogue in 2006. It was a different time. Much more straight-laced. Maybe there would be a few boho posh girls who would let their freak phalanges fly…but it was probably on their trip to like…Saint-Tropez, but not at the office. Anyways, Booth Moore is an OG journalist and would have really known the editors and writers at Vogue at the time and what they were wearing…all the industry people knew…they were like a coven…so I can imagine that Moore was totally aghast when that toe ring flickered onto the screen. It’s like when someone is making a movie about a subject that you are an expert in, and you pick it apart. Her response was only natural!
Disclaimer: I just want to note that I was not at Vogue at that time…I’m not ancient…but I go off of the lore that editors told me and what I have read.
You (and Moore) are right of course. I find it so funny how distasteful she finds it—you can just see the sneer on her face as she typed the words: “Was the shot meant to imply that her transformation from bohemian to label whore was never complete?” Andy just couldn’t shake that toe ring off! In your note on toe rings, you wrote that “A shimmering ring on the toe makes for a fascinating chaste and nasty moment,” which feels very apt for when it appears on Andy’s foot in DWP. The outfit that she wears it with is giving total vixen. This is the outfit that we’re told she picked out herself and it’s also the outfit that she finally does something “naughty” in. But she’s still doe-eyed and a little bit innocent.
Andy is finally able to express herself; reveal her true self. It’s funny, too: Feet are often supposed to be covered in a professional setting, so she kept it hidden for all that time! That toe ring was squeezed in those spindly pointy-toe stilettoes…I do think that was a genius styling moment on Field’s part. That foot-frontal panning…they wanted to show…they wanted to say something with that toe ring. Also, where did Andy go to school? Like UVM? Wasn’t it a vaguely hippie Ivy League spot? Northwestern or Brown?3 I don’t know. Makes sense she’d have a toe ring. Her aura is giving a bit of annoying earnestness and a whiff of crunch. Also, I hate how Andy marinates in the fact that she hates fashion and believes that she is smarter and less shallow than everyone. Go work at The Economist, queen. Anyways, a toe ring is like a removable tramp stamp…only for a few to see…unless you’re nasty, then you let everyone see!
Just thinking about her wearing that toe ring under those Clarks-esque clompers she wears on her first day…totally insane. There’s something about seeing the toe ring that emphasizes the ways in which Andy is, at the end of the day, a young woman making her way through this fresh post-college experience. No matter how certain she is, that youthfulness is part of her identity. The toe ring goes to show that she hasn’t come of age just yet. The toe ring is her lucky charm, a talisman in a way. It gets her the job, it makes her quit the job.
The toe ring under the Clarks clompers..that is doable..those dogs can breathe..but think about those stilettos...that toe ring was gasping for air...they were suffocating the crunch right out of Andy! Then when she bones Christian and takes agency over her life for better or worse…the toes get to breathe, she’s barefoot, she’s naked. This whole conversation is making me want to quit and just specialize in feet. Should I create a shoe label?4
Honestly, I keep thinking about the toe ring moment. What a genius, insightful styling moment from Field. Moore was right…no Vogue editor would wear that toe ring. But Andy Sachs was never meant to be there from the jump!
Last question: Andy’s boyfriend, Nate—villain or typical college boyfriend?
I think he is a nice boyfriend who gets shafted by Andy. I get it, though. I understand being so wrapped up in your job a la Andy that nothing matters in your personal life and everything about the job takes precedence. Every article. Every party. Every email. It’s frightening. It’s hard to be the other person (Nate) in the relationship and understand that.
I remember I saw this film with my high school boyfriend–and he really was sweet. He saw how Andy got sucked into that whirlwind industry and left Nate. He asked me after we walked out of the theater, still stinking of popcorn and Milk Duds: Are you just going to move to New York and do that to me? Luckily, we were broken up long before then!
You can find Liana and NEVERWORNS on Substack, on Youtube, and on Instagram, proselytizing about feet and footwear, amongst other amazing things. You’d be nuts to not follow her.
I’m a zillennial…at least I know it’s a bad habit!
How are you saying this word?
It was Northwestern!
The only answer is…YES!
 | A guest post by
|
I have never felt more MYSELF !!!!
I remember seeing or reading an interview of Pat Field about the movie and she said that unlike in SATC she really wanted us to feel the difference between Andy’s lack of style and capital F fashion, without using trends and making the movie feel dated by the time it came out! And I tend to agree, like it feels stylish without being as dated as say… Entourage which came out at the same time ish.