Anna Wintour, the outgoing editor-in-chief of Vogue, has addressed Meryl Streep’s performance as a formidable glossy fashion-mag editor widely perceived to be based on her in the 2006 comedy The Devil Wears Prada.
Based on the novel of the same name by Lauren Weisberger, who previously worked as Wintour’s assistant, the film starred Anne Hathaway as an aspiring reporter who secures a post as a lackey to the ice-cold editor of fictional publication Runway.
“I went to the premiere wearing Prada, completely having no idea what the film was going to be about,” Wintour said to New Yorker editor David Remnick on his podcast for the magazine. “And I think that the fashion industry were very sweetly concerned for me about the film, that it was going to paint me in some kind of difficult light.”
Remnick suggested it was “cartoonish”, to which Wintour agreed, adding: “Yes, a caricature.”
Yet Wintour said she was surprised by the subtlety of the portrayal, and impressed more generally by the film. “I found it highly enjoyable. It was very funny. Miuccia [Prada] and I talk about it a lot, and I say to her: ‘Well, it was really good for you.’”
The film, Wintour added, “had a lot of humour to it. It had a lot of wit. It had Meryl Streep. I mean, it was Emily Blunt, [and] they were all amazing. In the end, I thought it was a fair shot.” Streep was Oscar-nominated for her portrayal.
Ice-cold … Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in the film, based on a novel by Wintour’s former assistant. Photograph: Zuma Press, Inc/Alamy
In the past, Wintour demurred over enquiries asking for her take on the film, last year telling the BBC at a performance of the West End musical adapted from the film that it was “for the audience and for the people I work with to decide if there are any similarities between me and Miranda Priestly [the fictional editor]”.
A sequel to the film is currently shooting in New York, with Kenneth Branagh joining returning stars Hathaway, Streep, Blunt and Stanley Tucci. The original film took $326m from a $40m budget and has enjoyed a considerable cultural afterlife.
Wintour’s replacement as editor-in-chief of Vogue was recently announced as Chloe Malle, daughter of acclaimed French film director Louis Malle. Wintour continues as chief content officer for Condé Nast and global editorial director of Vogue.
