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- [00:01]
Podcast Host (Ad Host)
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- [01:20]
Jeff Berman
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- [02:06]
Bob Safian
This place where so many people would die to work. You only deign to work and you want to know why she doesn't kiss you on the forehead and give you a gold star on your homework at the end of the day.
- [02:19]
Janice Min
Day
- [02:22]
Bob Safian
Wake up sweetheart. Hey everyone, Bob here. Today we have a special super fun episode about the iconic movie the Devil Wears Prada. As a new sequel hits theaters, we're exploring the enduring impact and business lessons of the now 20 year old original. I brought in two leaders with deep experience in publishing, fashion and entertainment who dish with me about careers, ambitions, the definition of success and more. Plus some personal stories about the magazine industry that you're not gonna wanna miss. So let's get to it. I'm Bob Safian and this is Rapid Response. Today we're gonna have twice the fun because I'm joined by two guests. Janice Minn, CEO of the Ankler and former editor of the Hollywood Reporter and Us Weekly, and Sarah Ball, editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal's WSJ magazine, former, formerly at GQ and Vanity Fair. Janice, Sarah, great to have you both back on the show.
- [03:28]
Janice Min
Thanks for having me. Thank you for having us.
- [03:32]
Bob Safian
Yeah. So we're here to talk about the business and cultural lessons of the iconic film the Devil Wears Prada. As the sequel hits theaters, the original film revolves around Andy, a nerdy, earnest, recent journalism school grad played by Anne Hathaway, who lands a job as an assistant to Miranda Priestley, the devil in question, played by Meryl Streep, Miranda's editor in chief of fashion magazine Runway, which is a playoff of Vogue and its iconic leader, Anna Wintour. I want to start with your personal relationships to the original movie, Sarah. When you joined Vanity Fair, you were joining the same company that housed the devil, Anna Winter. You know, both Vanity Fair and Vogue are owned by Conde Neth. Did you relate to Anne Hathaway's character as a young newcomer to the company?
- [04:25]
Sarah Ball
I think that anybody who has been entry level at Conde Nast does relate to Andy. And certainly the original film was filmed in part. The turnstiles are the same that were actual at old Four Times Square at Conde Nast. So the literal process of getting into the building on your first day is similar in real life as it was for Andy in the film.
- [04:48]
Bob Safian
That was your life.
- [04:50]
Sarah Ball
That was my life. I mean, I was a little bit different. I had been a reporter at a news magazine and joined vanity fair in 2010. Those earnest clips that she's bustling with, I had those. I definitely was that person. But I had had a couple of years of professional experience before, so that gave me a little more of my sea legs. But certainly the, you know, looking around the Conde Nast cafeteria that is in the film and seeing these exotic creatures in all kinds of interpretations of work attire. That was a new. I had come from a real newsroom environment of yelling each other's last name and kind of gruff deadline behavior. And coming to Conde was. I experienced it through very similar eyes.
- [05:32]
Bob Safian
So, Janice, when the devil U.S. prada came out, you were editor in chief of Us Weekly. So you were the devil in your own newsroom when it came out.
- [05:41]
Janice Min
Yes, I was the devil, and I did wear Prada. But I will say, but like, you know, for anyone who worked in publishing at the time, there was a world of difference between working for Jan Wenner versus working at Conde Nast and you know, Jan Wenner ran a pretty down and dirty company, which would probably seem incredibly flush by today's standards. You could still go downstairs and there's like a line of black cars waiting there to take magazine people home.
- [06:13]
Bob Safian
This is pre Uber days, right? You had to, you had to have some way to get, to get a car home. Yeah.
- [06:20]
Janice Min
Yes. And obviously pre publishing collapse. But I remember like at one point Jan tried to convert that into taking a cab and like, like, like people like, I mean, oh my God, you're going to make us take cabs. And you know, that was pretty shocking stuff. But you know, the, the movie, when it came out, because we were working so inside the business, you kind of knew what was an exaggeration and what actually wasn't an exaggeration. It was an era of gatekeepers that kind of like its last gasp was probably, you know, that era about to collapse maybe a few years after the movie came out.
- [06:57]
Bob Safian
The original film brought in over $300 million at the box office globally on a modest $35 million budget. Meryl Streep won a Golden Globe award, got an Oscar nomination. Do you guys remember, was the film like highly anticipated at the time or was it kind of a surprise?
- [07:15]
Sarah Ball
Obviously the book was a huge bestseller and had really saturated the culture. The film quite famously tones down a little bit of the maybe vitriol or the, the devilness of the devil. And it did have a little bit of a, you know, glancing sympathy for what it's like to be inside the publishing industry and kind of gave the viewer that rubbernecker sense of looking inside of these glamorous institutions as opposed to sort of more focus on the degradation of being the assistant. It included more than excluded people who wanted to be party to the fashion industry, the costumes, the montage of her coats that still sort of endures in the culture. And that was like, you know, Sex and the City kind of peaking in the dawn of the Sex and the City movies. So it was like the opulence of the costumes, I think also played into the bigness of that hit.
- [08:06]
Janice Min
This was an era like, you know, in the business sense of mid budget movies. You could do a $35 million movie and have an enormous. That starred all women and plus Stanley Tucci. Right. That's like, that seems almost like some fantastical dream today. I think to Sarah's point, Manhattan was it in that decade. Right. Like it was the place to be. It seemed super exciting. A lot of this was fueled by Sex in the City and this Dream of, you know, one day you're going to come to New York and have a job in one of these very, very glamorous industries. And you will make it and you'll date, you know, Adrian Grenier from Entourage, which is another relic of that decade. He did not make it back for the sequel. I think it was a fantasy when I think probably people who are starting in their careers felt like there still were career fantasies, which is very different from, I think, how young people are viewing the job market right now.
- [09:01]
Bob Safian
So alongside the storytelling elements, the Devil Wears Prada is a business movie about work and ambition and what it takes to succeed. So I wanna take you through some key scenes and see what sort of lessons we can pull out of them. You mentioned Stanley Tucci's character, Nigel. The first is the gird your loin scenes, right? When that's what Nigel says right before Meryl Streep's character first enters her office and everyone's running around in a panic.
- [09:31]
Sarah Ball
All right, everyone, gird your loins.
- [09:35]
Bob Safian
The energy is fear, right? Miranda is the villain. Fear is a little bit out of style as a leadership stance these days, where there's more sort of avuncular Tim Cook than like brash Steve Jobs, although Donald Trump certainly leans into it. Is the message of this scene that, like, fear is good, a motivator or capricious?
- [09:59]
Sarah Ball
First of all, the phrase gird your loins has become like. So many lines from this film have become their own little memes, their own little taglines. The day that Chloe Maul, who is a friend who has, who also came up through Conde, got her now position running American Vogue, and I texted her congratulations and she wrote back, gird your loins as a cheeky response. And I just think that's the level of sort of sitcom funny clam that that gird your loins line has. She obviously meant it as an enormous joke. I think that it's meant to convey the personality driven enterprise that is Runway under Miranda Priestley, that, you know, it's one point of view. There's one captain this ship, and we're in service of that. And there's a sense of fear of going up. You know, you see the models and staffers diving out of the elevators if Miranda's stepping into the elevator. So, yes, I think it's meant to evoke the kind of theatrics that went into producing this thing. That is one person's point of view. And there's so many reasons why that has fractured as a workable model for Publishing and why the fear based workplace isn't, you know, is no longer in vogue, so to speak. Pun partially intended.
- [11:11]
Janice Min
It was a real testament to the cult of personality that used to form around editors. And, and that was like a, almost like a job requirement of being a well regarded editor. Like because people were hiring you to write a publication because, because they wanted it to have your vision of the world imparted on it. And you know, through that cult of personality around a well regarded editor, you know, advert, advertisers would come, you know, you could hold events that you could hire the right people. No one cares about editors anymore, right? Like nobody cares. And so I think if you fast forward to today, it's a little bit, you know, founder vibes, right? Like you have cult of personality around founders, around Silicon Valley. I mean, I presume when Elon Musk walks, you know, in, onto the SpaceX campus in Texas, there's probably, you know, some people are probably sweating it out and I'm not sure if there a lot of other industries that have that anymore.
- [12:14]
Bob Safian
Leadership in general feels like there are some places where you have your Elon Musks, but at most places people feel a lot more comfortable challenging what the boss is telling them. And bosses sort of maybe want to be liked a little bit more than they did then.
- [12:32]
Janice Min
Yeah, well, I mean, Sarah worked in a company where it's commonplace where you have an employee meeting and it's recorded and then leaked out to the media. I mean, these are unthinkable things from that era, right? And you know, as part of that, I think as illustrated by the first Devil Wears Prada, like I think people who worked in certain jobs swallowed a lot of humiliation along the way in order to kind of toe the line, right?
- [12:58]
Sarah Ball
There's so many more mechanisms for accountability. We see now stories about toxic work environments. They're quickly sort of held accountable and dissected with long investigations. There's leaking of meetings or screenshot of slacks. Employees obviously rejecting anything that is, goes into a toxic, abrasive work environment. And rightfully so.
- [13:20]
Bob Safian
I was noticing rewatching the movie, like the body shaming in the movie isn't subtle. I mean, they call Andy, you know, the smart fat girl. Like that language might get you canceled today. Right?
- [13:31]
Janice Min
Beyond canceled, I mean, I have friends who have worked at Vogue, right. And they have said to me they've never been so hungry in their life. Right. I mean that was, that was certainly, I think, a part not just of Vogue, but a fashion culture and, and an expectation the Iconic people of fashion. You know, Carolyn Bassett or Kate Moss. These were people whose, you know, one of their, you know, quote unquote best qualities was being, you know, this waifish, thin rail, thin woman.
- [14:06]
Bob Safian
Is the vibe about that different in the fashion industry now?
- [14:09]
Sarah Ball
Sarah, Shortly after the film came out, there was this enormous, you know, surge of kind of a reckoning the body positivity movement. We're gonna move towards size inclusivity. Then there have been challenges with that and again holding both brands and publications to account about size diversity. And you've seen all of many fashion publications move through that time and then now we're sort of in the GLP1. You know, how GLP1s have influenced that conversation is really interesting and still happening in Lifetime. Obviously there is the fashion industry being built on the modeling industry, which is very still centered around aesthetics. And still you see a lot of, you know, not only slim, but also unusually like six, three women who are very trim from around the world coming down runways. I think the conversation has become more self aware around representation and is a consideration for fashion publications and fashion photography. And it is not as certainly as the kind of abusive overtones of the first film. You do see a huge TikTok trend. I'm sure you guys have seen this of models from the 2000s talking about the ways they were sent home from shoots and just drop shipped back home because they couldn't be seen and they needed to sort of hide until they were trimmer. This goes to again, the Victoria's Secret Runway show being enormously popular and the sort of workouts to get slim for Victoria's Secret. All of that ought to culture now looks very retro. But as to whether we've grown completely grown out of it, I think no. With again, I just think it's become more about the sort of ozempic factor and what is. And it is actively in debate.
- [15:54]
Janice Min
I think the fact that we even have the conversation at all is huge progress. I think. You know, infamously there was that 60 Minutes interview with Anna Wintour, I believe it was in that decade where she, she was asked a question about, I think overweight people, fat people might have been the term that was used. And she said something disparaging. And that was completely fine like. And that was completely acceptable in that era. And so today if you had that sort of interview, that editor, that boss would have been coached in a million different ways, would have been so prep. Every harsh corner would have been sanded down where that phrase would have never
- [16:33]
Sarah Ball
been said no, it's the famous, the part that's the beginning when you're introduced and she's like, is there no tall, slim paratrooper in the army that I can feature? And you realize it's not just the fashion coverage, it's also all the.
- [16:47]
Janice Min
That's right.
- [16:47]
Sarah Ball
You know, that there was a. That they were. They were sort of upholding an aesthetic standard across the news, which is also just sort of, you know, mind blowing to think about.
- [16:57]
Bob Safian
Let me go to another scene from the film. One of the next key scene for me is what I call the cerulean scene. This is where Miranda basically, you know, mops the floor with Andy. She breaks down how this sort of frumpy blue sweater that Andy is wearing demonstrates the power and the intellect and the influence of the fashion business. It's just this like shake you up moment.
- [17:22]
Sarah Ball
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.
- [17:34]
Bob Safian
Looking back on this now, like, what. What does this scene say to you guys?
- [17:38]
Sarah Ball
This scene is one of the. It's a real truth of this film that there. There was at the time and still in vestigial pockets exists a top down dictation of certain taste codes that then go through the fashion ecosystem, which is a global business. I believe it is like an explanatory didactic monologue to explain exactly why Vogue, why there wasn't just arbitrary self decreed power, but the kind of power in Miranda's mind that she's giving herself is that she is leading not just this team of tastemakers, but she's leading a global industry. And there really was truth to some of that at the time. And there remain aspects of the industry for which this is true. And the symbiotic relationship between editorial fashion shoots and what's featured in them and advertising fashion shoots and what products are popularized among people.
- [18:35]
Bob Safian
And this, like this, this idea that, that fashion trickles down from a handful of tastemakers. I mean, is that true in a social media world? It's over.
- [18:46]
Janice Min
This is all bottom up now, right? And this is where gatekeepers are struggling. Gatekeepers sit on top of kind of, you know, I don't want to say a diminishing group of people, but they're sitting on top of a audience that likes the idea of curation in what they're receiving. Whereas, you know, anyone, Gen Z and younger is not waiting for me or Sarah to tell them how to think or what to feel or what to buy.
- [19:13]
Sarah Ball
The tastemakers are different. They still exist in the ecosystem. And producing this handbag, I'm ceding it to some influencers. People are seeing them on the arms of influencers. They are then creating that demand and want. It's no longer me walking down the street with a bag or spotlight.
- [19:30]
Janice Min
I mean, Sarah, I mean wouldn't an example of this be. And you can correct me if I got this wrong, but like even like vintage Coach bags, which were not a thing that any editor put forth. It was not, you know, in the pages of Vogue or Harper's Bazaar. And then suddenly, you know, everyone wants a vintage Coach bag, a complete bottom up.
- [19:49]
Sarah Ball
I think where that, where, where it' fascinating is to see. Then, you know, Coach and Stuart Vavers interpret some of that enthusiasm and speak to that Gen Z customer and realize, wow, there's real enthusiasm here. And we're going to create designs that speak to a young customer. Like you kind of watch that happen. But it is exactly to Janice's point, it's, it is bottom up. And this started not long after the film came out at some of these publications putting moving past the model cover into the celebrity cover and then moving past the celebrity cover into the Kate Upton, Kim Kardashian, Lauren Sanchez Bez, like into this figment of popular culture cover that isn't really particularly an actor, actress, director, slim, female paratrooper, elected official that represents the kind of. The people have spoken and they are dying to see.
- [20:40]
Bob Safian
Gird your loins and grab your blue sweaters. We're only getting started. Still to come, the Met Gala, Paris Fashion Week and what Andy really learns by the end of the movie. We'll be right back.
- [21:00]
Podcast Host (Ad Host)
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- [21:45]
Sarah Ball
scale humans will never be more intelligent than AI.
- [21:50]
Bob Safian
There's going to be two types of companies, those who are great at AI
- [21:53]
Podcast Host (Ad Host)
and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future that is human centered?
- [22:00]
Sarah Ball
I'm Rana El Khaliubi, and on my podcast, Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur and investor, I know what it takes to to build AI that works for everyone. Every week I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future, and we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find Pioneers of AI wherever you tune in.
- [22:31]
Bob Safian
Before the break, Janice Min of the Ankler and Sarah Ball of WSJ magazine dished about enduring lessons from the Devil Wears Prada and what's changed since the film came out. Now we talk about the Met Gala scene from the movie Paris Fashion Week and what the impact of the sequel might be. Let's jump back in. I want to go deeper into, like, the boss assistant relationship in the movie. You know, once Andy embraces the job and decides to give it her, all her boundaries fall. Right. She takes calls from Miranda at all hours. She misses her boyfriend's birthday. She takes on the impossible, whether it's a flight home in a hurricane or an unpublished Harry Potter manuscript. It's like this vibe there that you sort of in the movie, that you start out by paying your dues. Right. It's sort of this traditional trade off of, you know, you have to give up your life to advance and to learn that need, that message for new generations. Seems like maybe it's shifting a little bit.
- [23:32]
Janice Min
Well, I think it's that line you get when you interview someone where they'll say, you know, I really want life, work. Balance is really important to me, and that's fine. I, like, go for it. And I think that is a different expectation of people, of work that people would have had in 2006 when you were trying to make it in, let's say, the publishing industry. That's a very different expectation.
- [23:59]
Sarah Ball
I agree with that. There's a kind of boundaries around the workday. At the same time, you're still responding out of hours. I think that the way that it's expressed at that era and that time was that the only way to show passion and interest and the way to box out all of these competitors in these crowded fields is to be at my desk 24 7. And if not, we're going to find another. Another disposable person to put at the desk 24 7, I think.
- [24:24]
Janice Min
Right. Because there are going to be a thousand grinders who would take your spot in a second. Right.
- [24:30]
Sarah Ball
This is a smaller industry than it used to be. These publishing teams are smaller. And the, the basement on entry level work has risen in skill set. And so there isn't just this. All you have to be is a body sitting there answering the phone and running around with stuff. I think that you're asking this person to be more skilled. And with that comes more of the shape of a day that follows the shape of a professional's day.
- [24:53]
Bob Safian
The kind of work burden that Andy is under, which in some ways people today would be even more aghast at. Like, no, I'm not going to work that way. But at the same time, like, that job wouldn't even exist, right?
- [25:07]
Janice Min
No. I mean, you certainly could not justify in your organization hiring someone who will, you know, pick cranberries out of your salad or go. You'd be responsible for getting you coffee all day.
- [25:17]
Sarah Ball
That.
- [25:17]
Janice Min
Yeah, the dog. Right. That just. That just wouldn't not possibly happen. You know, I had. I had worked for an editor once before I became an editor in chief who, you know, had the assistant run out her stool sample to the doctor. Right. And like, that was sort of. I mean, everyone in the office was aghast, but you certainly weren't going to say a thing about it. You were almost like the personal handmaiden to the editor if you were in that job, whether you were male or female, and you were at the beck and call at all times. And that was in a weird way, like the expectation of the job. And I think in the decade after, after Devil Wears Prada, like HR teams became very invested in, you know, assistants can't do your personal work for you. They can't plan your kids birthday party. You know, you can't have them go pick up your dry cleaning. And I think those boundaries were not in effect until there was enough groundswell and the culture shifted to, you know, put those into effect.
- [26:17]
Bob Safian
I mean, this handmaiden phrasing that you have, if you think about it in professional terms, it makes me think about the Met gala scene in the movie. I mean, the Met gala itself is, if anything, a bigger deal today culturally. But there Andy's there with Miranda and she's whispering this critical information about a guest into Miranda's ear.
- [26:37]
Sarah Ball
It's Ambassador Franklin, and that's the woman that he left his wife for, Rebecca.
- [26:42]
Bob Safian
I've heard business folks reference this scene, you know, as like this. Oh, is this a superpower that AI could deliver to me one day? Right.
- [26:50]
Janice Min
It's like, well, I Think you're so. You're so important. You don't need to know who any of the little people are. You are the most important. Everyone knows who you are. They don't need. You don't need to know who they are. But, you know, the handmaiden certainly better know who every single one of those people is and better not screw it up.
- [27:08]
Sarah Ball
That's one of the more legitimate business uses of MD in that she's there. You show her advantage suddenly, professionally, by knowing the world, getting to know the players, knowing this is an important donor, knowing this is an important executive. It's surprised that they're here. And kind of. That, to me, is her as chief of staff, which is a sort of modern, more contemporary version. When she's got the surfboards for spring break and knocking over the crowd, I think that feels like the archaic vers. But you think about the Vanity, where I was, the Vanity Fair Cannes party. That was such a big deal, and it lives on. Dario Amode of Anthropic. He's gonna need somebody whispering into who this Hollywood crowd is. That still, I think, is a live, active thing, which are these scenes of power. These kind of publishing could create these enclaves.
- [27:53]
Bob Safian
So the climax of the movie comes at Paris Fashion Week. There's so much business gravitas attributed to that moment. Although I have had some guests on the show argue that Fashion Week isn't what it used to be. What does the movie's depiction of Fashion Week say about the industry then and the industry now?
- [28:14]
Sarah Ball
The makeover of Fashion Week, it looks. Doesn't resemble what it used to. There's still. It's still quite a big scene. It still is the case that you go to a show in Milan, in Paris, it is a red carpet. It is hordes of people on stadiums taking photos. It's going through a tunnel. It's fearing you're gonna be trampled in a stampede. It is glamorous. There is a front row. There are celebrities. There are flashbulbs going off. It is like an award. Awards show. Leica. It's just sort of. It is a very. It's certainly not. Oh, it's just modest and retiring now. It's just. No. If anything, these luxury brands have so much invested in a luxury turnaround that they've become even more circusy. The front row is filled with influencers. It's filled with a new level of celebrity. And editors are there, but they're maybe shunted over into more of a corner so that these celebrities can have front row Seat.
- [29:03]
Janice Min
Well, let's. Can we talk about Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez showing up to Fashion Week and. And like, you know, you're whatever top three wealthiest people in the world, and this is where you're choosing to spend your time. And that reveals the power of Fashion Week. You know, you want to go where the flashbulbs are, right? They are not subtle people. It used to be. It would be Upper east side, you know, socialites who would come fly into Paris. And now it's tech oligarchs and their spouses. Part of where we are in culture where everyone's looking in their own life for tentpole moments, that everything has gone irl. When you could stream fashion shows, people are like, ah, no one's gonna go anymore. But in fact, the opposite has occurred. That something like the social clout you have from being there, from being in the room, from being photographed, is still irreplaceable.
- [29:56]
Sarah Ball
The security is so heightened because there are people who crash, who can copy a QR code, who can try to hack their way in. So now it is like, you know, it is incredibly intense to get in. Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan were also at their first kind of front row show together this year. They were in. They were at Prada. So it is what. What's different is an editor. An editor in chief is not making that connection. You know, the brand and the tech company are often either in business together occasionally or they're. They're directly in contact. And I think what you're seeing is those publications don't need to marry those two industries together in the same way as in the film, the kind of the list, you know, the sense that it's all being held together by a publication is not true.
- [30:38]
Bob Safian
At the end of the movie, Andy decides that, you know, to stay true to herself, she has to move on. But she also appreciates Miranda kind of unexpectedly. And I wonder what you feel about this takeaway. Cause part of it, it's like dealing with the slings and arrows of a tough workplace is valuable. Learning she got something out of it. But ultimately, we should all follow our soul. And that means not being seduced by money and power.
- [31:08]
Janice Min
Publishing was an amazing place for women. Right? It was like one of the first industries where you saw women rise to the top. And it. And I think in the decades since, we've seen how hard that actually is for women. So publishing was like this rarefied world where women held the power that just doesn't really exist in another industry right now. So I think that in some ways Andy is reflecting her begrudging respect, or not even begrudging her respect for how hard this woman fought and fought her way to the top and stayed there. That is an extremely hard thing to do. I think anyone who has had a decades long career in journalism should get a medal. It is a really hard thing to do. And so I think that that end also reflects that Andy had the choice to go follow her heart and do something she wanted. I don't think people in journalism today always have that choice. It's a little bit about who'll pay me, who'll pay me. Now, is this a way station or is it a destination? And I'm glad I'm still making money in this field. So I think that has completely shifted. And without giving anything away, it's in the reviews that just came out for devil wears Prada 2. You see how that works out for Andy and it doesn't work out well,
- [32:19]
Sarah Ball
Certainly her leaving for local news like the quasi Village Voice, that they show this, like utopian, like Matt, that, that heartbreakingly, that does not exist. But I think that you do, you do feel at the end that she developed real skills. Resilience and friction and having to learn, learning how to spell Gabbana. And all of these things have made her stronger and more sophisticated professionally. And that's where it became not just a story about fashion, but really a story about coming to New York, about getting off, stepping off the bus into New York, going to make my way. I'm going to be knocked down a thousand times, but I'm going to get up. And I think that that, to me is a very hopeful message that I do hope isn't fully eroded by the kind of dour outlook right now for young people entering the workforce.
- [33:04]
Bob Safian
I haven't seen the sequel. As I said, the plot involves Andy coming back to Runway to help manage Miranda's reputation online. Which is a very 2026 scenario in some ways. Right. Tables turn.
- [33:16]
Janice Min
Well, I'll also say, like, and this is in the reviews today, so I'm not spoiling anything. There's a scene where Miranda Priestley's being led onto an airplane and she passes through business class and is seated in coach. I mean, it is very on the nose About Publishing in 2026. And so I think insiders will find that entertaining. And I think everyone probably has a comp in their own work life that would make it resonate too.
- [33:44]
Bob Safian
Sarah, is the fashion industry excited by the timing of the sequel? Does the fashion industry want this?
- [33:51]
Janice Min
Oh, Yeah.
- [33:52]
Sarah Ball
I think that there's so much excitement for the film among the fashion industry. And I think the timing of it, with the Met gala and all of it all at once makes people sort of extra aware of it. It feels. It's very referential. A lot has been written about this. There's not the same vogue holding film at arm's length. There's a total embrace of it. Miranda Priestly on the COVID Excuse me. Meryl Streep. Well, Miranda Priestley on the COVID with Anna Wintour. Events in support of the film. The film's had this huge global press tour. People are dressing up. They're talking about going dressed up. It's intergenerational, as we know, which I think hits on that kind of event movie going. That has been powerful.
- [34:30]
Janice Min
And, Sarah, am I correct? Like, I just see a ton of headlines about all the designers. It's like a revolving door at all the big fashion houses. And so I would have to think that anything that makes fashion bigger on a big screen is great for fashion right now. Yes.
- [34:46]
Sarah Ball
It's like a fan film again. I think we'll see where the plot goes and how many overstuffed celebrity cameos are in there and, like, how a lot more durable or flimsy we feel the sort of dramatic acts of it are. But I do think that it's kind of that feel good, sweep everybody up.
- [35:03]
Bob Safian
And Janice, from an entertainment industry perspective, like, you know, Hollywood loves a reboot, obviously, but, like, why this sequel now, 20 years later?
- [35:14]
Janice Min
Well, I think you got the talent to say yes, for starters. Right. Also, I think there is, like, a really current workplace discussion that you can have through the lens of this movie now. You know, oh, my God. AI. No one can get a job. You know, L.A. is too expensive. New York's too expensive. I mean, there's just. There is, of course, an affordable housing plot line also in the movie. So it was. I think there enough has changed in the world that it gave them, like, a narrative arc. And also it gave you enough time to miss it. I think every time a Fast and Furious comes out. Did you miss it? So I think the timing's great. It's worth noting that 20th Century Fox, the studio who first did this movie, kind of no longer exists. It got bought by Disney. So it's, in a little ways, also a callback to the kinds of movies that Fox used to make on their own. Pre franchise movies.
- [36:13]
Bob Safian
Yeah. Well, I was wondering whether there's any. Like, this is prompting any reflection in Hollywood about sort of the success of the original movie and things we should do differently.
- [36:22]
Janice Min
No, Bob, no. Absolutely none.
- [36:25]
Bob Safian
No reflections.
- [36:26]
Janice Min
Yeah. There will be no reflection if this succeeds in a big way. There will be nothing about female audience. It'll be like yet another aberration of females coming to movies. Nothing. Don't give this industry any credit.
- [36:40]
Bob Safian
Let me try a little rapid fire round if we can. So is New York still where you want to move to make it in fashion, publishing, media?
- [36:50]
Sarah Ball
I think yes, I'm going to go yes on that one. Is it as easy, as easy as it was then? And it wasn't considered easy then?
- [36:56]
Janice Min
No, I think it's now. La, San Francisco, New York.
- [37:02]
Bob Safian
All right. Do either of you have anything you'd like, want to bring back from 2006?
- [37:09]
Janice Min
I just miss the cultural impact of magazines, right. And I think, you know, in all the kind of reckonings that we've been through, maybe it wasn't cultural for everybody, right? But it certainly was like agenda setting and. And this idea of a monoculture, right. That you could. I mean, I was doing Us Weekly. There was no. Nothing more monoculture than Us Weekly. That everyone kind of knew the same stars, you could talk about them in the same way. Everyone shared a conversation. I miss that part.
- [37:37]
Sarah Ball
I think that one thing I miss that again is it's just not a current facet of maybe today's workplaces. A ton of investment in some of these publishing companies, in their own culture, in sort of really nice workplace and nice things for people. And we're going to do nice things together and believe that fomenting culture inside the walls is going to help us produce the work. Like, I always think about how some of these magazines felt like the magazine was a byproduct, but what was actually the work creation was creating the culture where we could come up with the weirdest, most expensive and hard to do ideas. So I think all of that still exists. It's just a leaner. A leaner environment. So you're not thinking, well, what if we shut down Madison Avenue and we brought in a parade and we flew a drone over and then we, you
- [38:27]
Janice Min
know, it's a. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it.
- [38:30]
Sarah Ball
Yes, exactly. It doesn't matter what it costs. We'll worry about that later.
- [38:33]
Bob Safian
Watching this movie, did either you reflect on a boss in your career who gave you Miranda vibes? Miranda Energy?
- [38:40]
Janice Min
Oh, yeah. I won't name names.
- [38:43]
Bob Safian
You're still afraid of them, huh?
- [38:45]
Janice Min
I am not.
- [38:46]
Bob Safian
No.
- [38:46]
Janice Min
I disdain them completely. No, when you have a terrible boss, you do learn, I think in that final Andy scene kind of way, you're like, okay, like, they made me a better version of, you know, an employee myself. But you also learn, like, this is not how I want to be. I will not conduct myself. This, like, this is like the kind of, you know, and I think when, you know, when I was an editor chief of Us Weekly and, you know, later, Hollywood Reporter, like, you don't want to become the caricature of what a movie might tell you that job is, right?
- [39:19]
Sarah Ball
What's conferred on you by dint of that title? I never had a specifically Miranda figure in that way, but I do think that the editors in chief that I worked for, I'm thinking of like four different editors in chief. They did have a sense of celebrity. It didn't feel like you were necessarily sitting in the room with a peer colleague. It felt like, you know, this is somebody who is, who's their tailor. Their tailoring is whisked in and they're, they're. It's like I have a four room office and they have, you know, a driver.
- [39:48]
Janice Min
Assistance.
- [39:49]
Sarah Ball
Yeah, assistance. And so I think that that like legend status. I, I do think about a lot. I think it, it that authority and the creation of authority and bearing and the role that inhabiting the role fully has and that creation of authority. And I think I do think about that a lot.
- [40:07]
Bob Safian
Part of what leadership sometimes is, is illusion. Right. And what do you, what do you do to create that illusion? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [40:16]
Sarah Ball
One thing we haven't touched on, that's one of the big discussion, to me, funniest and most interesting discussion points out of this film is just the role that your partner, supporting or not supporting your career has in the career that you pursue. Obviously, Adrian Grenier in this film as the Rising Shadow, feels, you know, that Andy is focusing way too much time on her career. And maybe the rebuttal at the end is that they're each gonna go their separate ways. It has that kind of la la land feel of two ambitious people, but so much interesting discussion. The character of Nate, he. He's had a reputational rise and fall over the years as tastes have changed about kind of what your partner should think about a career that's all consuming. I think that, you know, has. I think it's landed on a place of find the person that supports your
- [41:06]
Bob Safian
dream, whatever that dream is. Even if that dream is, Is obsessive.
- [41:10]
Janice Min
Right.
- [41:11]
Sarah Ball
It doesn't guilt you about it. Maybe.
- [41:12]
Janice Min
Yeah. I mean, like we're in the era of trad wives. Right. And like where certain politicians will say, your job as a woman is to stay home and support your husband. Right. And, and that kind of message would have been impossible to have gained traction, I think, in the era of Devil Wears Prada 1 and it, it was very much I would in a way that was, I hate to say, maybe unique to a generation. And that has sort of ebbed and flowed since then.
- [41:43]
Bob Safian
So, last question, should we Expect Devil Wears Prada 3?
- [41:46]
Janice Min
Let's look at the numbers on Monday.
- [41:49]
Bob Safian
Well, Janice, Sarah, thanks so much for doing it. It's great to bounce all these things around with you.
- [41:55]
Sarah Ball
Thank you for having us.
- [41:56]
Janice Min
So great to spend time with you.
- [41:59]
Bob Safian
So I had my version of a Miranda Priestly experience early in the my career. I worked for a notorious bully in the magazine industry named Steve Brill at a trade magazine called the American Lawyer. The job was hardly glamorous, but I did learn a ton from him, both stuff I wanted to emulate and stuff that I pledged to never do. The thing about career experiences like movies is that our takeaways often depend on us. No matter how hard we work, the most important, important task is often reflection. What do we prioritize on the job and in life? What can we control? And what do we just have to roll with? You don't have to be a devil or work for a devil to feel the pressure of today's uncertain times. But you do have to get comfortable being uncomfortable to keep experimenting and learning. Because like fashion itself, nothing stands still. I'm Bob Saffron. Safian. Thanks for listening. Rapid response is a wait. What? Original I'm Bob Safian. Our executive producer is Eve Tro. Our producer is Alex Morris. Associate producer is Mashumaku Tonina. Mixing and mastering by Brian Pugh. Our theme music is by Ryan Holiday. Our head of podcasts is Lital Milad. For more, visit rapidresponseshow.com.