The Devil Wears Prada World Premiere - Reflections from the red carpet
How a movie shaped a generation of aspiring Andy Sachs
Last night I was on the red carpet for the world premiere of the Devil Wears Prada Two. With a client who wanted me by her side to make sure her look was perfect, working for a team that I have worked with for over three years now and trusts me on some of the biggest occasions, running around New York, collecting priceless jewelry and last minute pristine leather gloves, rushing in and out of a gorgeous hotel to put the finishing touches on her look.
Have you ever had that moment - you look up, look around, have a real life glimmer of joy rip through your whole body so thoroughly you’re stopped dead in your tracks? Have you ever thought “oh, it makes SENSE now” - when every break up, job switch, apartment move, city you’ve outgrown all add up to a beautiful amalgamation of right where you are supposed to be in this perfect moment?
You know those adorable viral videos of older people saying what they wish they had known when they were younger or the best life advice they have? Most of them say something along the lines of “If I had known it was all going to work out how my life is now, I wouldn’t have stressed / worried / worked so much.” They usually emphasize how crazy it is to think you would have it all figured out so young in life, that when you are young, the single most important and responsible thing you can do is use your youth to enjoy every single thing you are physically capable of. It’s why I walked through Central Park today on the way to my meeting, because even though it was cold, I COULD WALK THROUGH CENTRAL PARK ON THE WAY TO A MEETING. That is a sentence that would have put 13 year old me into a coma out of sheer excitement. I am writing this from my bed looking out onto classic brick buildings in Soho from the apartment I rent and pay for with my job in fashion working on the outfits celebrities wear on the red carpet (!!!). Not often enough do I sit and think about the work it has taken to get here, because much of the daily, head down work and proving myself it took was not just necessary, but slow growth until it feels like everything is happening all at once. And one of those beautiful, poignant moments happened to me last night.
It is always a privilege to help a client look and feel their best so they can go out and perform whatever they are showing up for to their fullest potential. With most of clients I work with, these are usually highly publicized, high pressure appearances such as carpets, photoshoots, ad shoots, or press and TV appearances. They are all incredible at what they do and even more so at promoting and honoring the commitment to their work. It’s my job to take away any of the stress of their outer armor and ensure that what they are wearing is absolute perfection.
I was thrilled to be helping with a look for the premiere of a movie that made me, however backwards from the original authors probable intent, desperate to work in fashion and be Andy Sachs of my own one day. I wanted to run around NYC with an overflowing tray of Starbucks because that meant 1. I had a boss so 2. I had actually been hired to work somewhere and 3. I was working my way up the long totem poll i.e. masthead of the fashion world. Living in LA and working in this industry, I have called home probably hundreds of times over the past five years and regaled my family with truly unbelievable tales that have happened to me. Life seemed to be imitating art a la The Devil Wears Prada and the fashion industry, even 20 years later. I remember one time running down the side of Jefferson Boulevard in Culver City with a pair of shoes I had just been digging in a storage unit for because the stylist would not wait five more seconds for me to appear from the dusty bins stacked to the ceiling. And that was before I even started working with celebrities!! But every time I had a truly Devil Wears Prada moment, it almost made me laugh - or at least, it helped keep me from crying. Some poor fashion assistant had walked in these Jimmy Choo’s before me.
Last night, as we put the finishing touches on the clients incredible look (read: an absolutely stunning diamond encrusted brooch from David Webb), we went down to the lobby to take some photos and get in the town car to go to the premiere. Typically, a stylist will accompany a client to properly situation / fluff / tuck / drape their train or gown precisely for photographers. She was wearing a tuxedo absolutely tailored to perfection, though, and stepped out looking divine. “Come with us,” she beckoned anyways, and up the blood red stairs of the Lincoln Center we ascended.
The premiere was massive, looking like a set up of the Oscars or Golden Globes carpet. Hundreds of fans were behind a barricade across the street, and dozens of photographers photographed every entry as well trained media assistants ushered in the next VIP for their glambot / interview / TikTok / step and repeat. Taking in this side of the job, where usually as a stylist your job is done once they step on the carpet, was so incredibly cool to me. To see how the global press for this movie has been so well done, playing off the incredibly iconic actors that are back in their roles from twenty years ago and so many homages to the epic fashion references that are still being replicated today. To stand on the red carpet at the pinnacle of it all at this movie premiere - it was surreal.
I grew up on a small island where you had to take a 45 minute ferry boat and then drive another 30 to get to the nearest mall. We went shopping twice a year for literally 12 hours at a time, training to be a marathon shop-till-you-drop shopper from age 7. I would go absolutely ballistic anytime I was given free rein in Limited Two, Justice or, if my mother dared to let me go into essentially a strongly perfumed nightclub, Abercrombie at the mall. I’ve loved fashion since I came out of the womb, allegedly carrying a tiny purse around before I could even talk. My family has called me “bag lady” since I was about two. My mom has always been the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen get dressed, and I would sit there, mesmerized, watching her get ready for dinner parties, chameleon-ing herself from the mom that had just spent all day with dirt under her nails in the garden through adoring the most beautiful dresses and colorful jewelry. I worked in the stock shoe room at my god mothers clothing store when I was so young I wasn’t even allowed to drink coffee, although I’d go to the cafe across the street and get mocha frappes for her and my mom. I’ve read Vogue religiously for years, taped shoots up in every apartment I’ve ever lived in and have never walked down a street in my life without window shopping. I have forever and always wanted to work in fashion. And last night I stood on the steps of the Lincoln Center living out a moment I have dreamed of so many times but could never have even imagined.
There is so much more in this industry I hope to do and see and accomplish. I have only begun to scratch the surface of discerning what lights me up and what I need to pass on to conserve my energy. All I know is the immense amount of joy and gratitude I feel for what I was able to experience last night deserves to be felt, to be deliciously savored to remind myself what I am working towards. We are so lucky to be alive, even more so to chase the things that make us stop in our tracks because we FEEL so alive.
My client’s mom encouraged me to write this. While we were getting ready, I ran downstairs to steam her beautiful Dior cape, and she kindly asked me about what I do and how long I’ve been working for her daughter’s incredible stylists. I told her that I’ve been working with them over three years, styling for 5 and that I also really love to write. She asked me what I enjoy writing about and as I was laboriously telling her about recent pieces and titles, she said “So, you’re a fashion and beauty journalist?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I guess that’s actually the perfect way to describe what I like to write. I have never really had a good way to name it before.”
“Well, now you have a title. And when you give something a title, you give it meaning.”
And just like being Miranda Priestlys assistant gave Andy meaning, albeit, possibly not until after her indentured servitude, being a journalist gives a new meaning to the lens in which I am looking at my job.
She looked at me with all the confidence in the world, like she had just bestowed my new career on me. And in a way, it felt like she had. She had named and said out loud the job title I’ve been working my way towards, knowingly and unknowingly, for years. My favorite part of my job is getting to meet so many different people, because they tend to reflect or unearth parts of you sometimes you are not even brave enough to say out loud.
So this reflection is both to memorialize how epic last night was, and mark a new career milestone moving forward. Stylist, fashion journalist, fashion editor - just like Andy Sachs would say, with enough Starbucks and handwork, it’s all possible.
That’s all.
