The Devil Wears Prada: A Mini Reflective Study

This is that film for me. The one that I can endlessly rewatch and keep re-living its fashionable fantasy.

In all honesty, I think I've watched about 50 times since I was first captured by its storyline, its aesthetic and most importantly its fashion.

You know when immensely successful people always pinpoint the exact thing, or person, or memory that made them want to pursue a specific career or life long goal?

Yeah. This is it for me.

As I've realised over the past week, the reason I've watched this film so many times and continue to love it EVEN MORE every time is that it's the industry I hope to work in (aside from working with a horrendous boss of course).

The unassuming star of the office, Andy, makes a bunch of mistakes ranging from mixing up orders to catastrophic ones (cerulean blue is not just your ordinary blue). And although she makes so many of these mistakes throughout the film, she ends up owning them and in turn, owning her personality and herself as a person.

She possesses the right type of confidence, that just immeasurably attracts me to her personality and her lifestyle.

I am totally aware that her job consists of running for hot Starbucks hourly, picking up Hermes scarves and skirts from Calvin Klein. But they're scarves from Hermes and skirts from Calvin Klein.

Call me vain and a little shallow perhaps, but that aspirational lifestyle, that stylish way of living is what draws me in every time.

I can just hear the glamour calling me from the screen.

Side note: quite pertinent to my management and communication courses this semester, I'm just acknowledging the super awful employee-employer relationship, lack of positive communication and crazy overtime they work. Side note over.

I fully understand it's not an industry where you move mountains for politics, help people in need or do anything truly or remotely 'giving' for others.

But as Miranda Priestly eloquently articulates, "it's art, it's what you're in every day". Fashion, that is.

And just watch me mention aspirational lifestyle 200 times more.

Yeah yeah, they don’t show the deadlines, writer's block, photoshoot failures, or the long boring hours spent staring at a computer screen as part of the job. They show the flashy side: big money, big fashion, big time. I know. But I'd still be willing to work in that stylish environment.

Perhaps one of the best themes of this movie is the personal growth of Andy. This story of development, maturity and growth is what makes the movie so re-watchable. It doesn't focus on romantic relationships or anything. It's Andy on her own journey paving a path for herself in the world and ultimately finding her own style in a dream of a wardrobe.

Thank you for reading my dream rant and amateur movie critic thoughts.