The Devil Wears Prada 2 is officially in production, coinciding with a dramatic moment in Anna Wintour’s life

When Emily declared Andy was “chic” in The Devil Wears Prada, it was the highest of compliments.

But last month, British Vogue decreed that “chic” is no longer chic. What will Emily use now, with the long-awaited sequel, The Devil Wears Prada 2, officially in production?

The news was announced on social media with a video featuring the movie poster’s famous pitchfork heel, multiplied by two.

The grand dame of mean, Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestley, is back, as are original castmates Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci. Kenneth Branagh will reportedly join the film as Miranda’s husband, presumably not the one who filed for divorce in the first movie.

Plot details are not yet confirmed but is expected to feature a storyline involving Miranda contending with a greatly challenged magazine industry, and turning to her former assistant Emily, who apparently now controls the ad dollars for a luxury house.

The 2006 movie was adapted from author Lauren Weisberger’s semi-autobiographical novel about working for Anna Wintour at Vogue. 20th Century Fox bought the screen rights before the book was released, based on the first 100 pages and an outline.

With Miranda, a thinly veiled dramatisation of the all-powerful Wintour, the production ran into several obstacles.

Director David Frankel, who will return to helm the sequel, had previously said New York institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum, which hosts Wintour’s annual Met Gala, and Bryant Park, the then site of New York Fashion Week, wouldn’t have anything to do with the film.

Even fancy NYC apartment buildings wouldn’t allow the production to film there, and the movie borrowed a townhouse from a producer’s friend to use as the location for Miranda’s apartment.

Wintour’s relationships with designers meant costume head Patricia Field, had to leverage the goodwill built up over her years on Sex and the City to assemble a wardrobe for a film set in the world of high fashion.

Over the years, Wintour’s supposed chilling effect on real-world fashion figures participating in the film created its own mythology, with reports, which her people denied, that she had threatened any designers who took up offers to cameo as themselves in the film. Valentino Garavani was the only one who did.

In the almost two decades since the release of The Devil Wears Prada, if there was beef, maybe not all is forgotten, but it certainly appears forgiven.

Streep, Hathaway and Blunt have all graced the covers of Vogue. Streep and Wintour even sat down together to promote the magazine’s 125th anniversary issue, and even made a joking reference to Miranda Priestley, or Streep almost did before Wintour cut her off, “No, no! We’re not going there, Meryl!”.

Wintour said of the film in 2009, “It was entertainment. It was not a true rendition of what happens within this magazine.”

Despite whatever roadblocks she may or may not have put up in front of the original production, the film arguably only added to her public image. Streep and the filmmakers also made the choice to give Miranda a couple of human moments, which allowed audiences to see the character’s vulnerable side – something Weisberger’s book did not do.

Wintour, now 75, may not feel so inclined to intervene against the sequel, which comes at a dramatic time for the publishing giant, which announced last week she will step down from the role of editor-in-chief of Vogue after 37 years.

She will stay on as global chief content officer at Conde Nast and remain as Vogue’s editorial director.

Wintour ruled with an iron fist for almost four decades, and shaped the industry to her will, but fashion and publishing have changed dramatically from when she took the helm in the late 1980s, with social media and self-styled influencers changing the dynamics.

Consumers are just as likely, if not more, to take their fashion and beauty cues from the Kardashians, a family she gatekept from the Met Gala for many years before acquiescing and publicly embracing them from the mid-2010s, including placing Kim and Kanye West on the cover in 2014.

She said in her 2019 Masterclass, “There is always a time when you know you have to break the rules. Kim and Kanye were part of the conversation of the day, and for Vogue to not recognise that would have been a big misstep.”

Wintour’s relinquishment of Vogue US coincided with the extravagant wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez. Sanchez appeared on a Vogue digital cover in her divisive Dolce and Gabbana wedding gown, and the reaction was, to put it mildly, not well received.

Almost every commenter beneath Vogue’s post of the cover even joked-perhaps-not-joked that Sanchez and the age of the flashy billionaire finally made Wintour quit.