Let’s be honest about what a sequel premiere actually is. It’s a trial. An evidence hearing. Decades of life, career and accumulated taste called before a jury of photographers and asked to justify themselves in real time. Most people survive it. A select few make it look like revenge.
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The Devil Wears Prada 2 New York Premiere
The cast of The Devil Wears Prada 2 arrived at David Geffen Hall on April 20 and several of them committed what can only be described as fashion violence. The good kind. The kind with architectural skirts and opera gloves and the absolute audacity to change outfits mid-event.
The Devil Wears Prada 2006 Premiere
Go back to 2006 for a second. The original premiere was charming. Sarah Jessica Parker in a metallic cap-sleeve mini. Hayden Panettiere in silver. Everyone looking eager and press-ready. It was a premiere in the way that premieres used to be premieres. Nice clothes, nice evening, move on.
Anne Hathaway: The Lady In Red
Anne Hathaway wore red in 2006 because she was a 23-year-old with excellent fashion instincts. She wore red in 2026 because she has Nicolas Ghesquière on speed dial and a custom Louis Vuitton gown with 3D pleated cone/horn formations that made origami look unambitious. The structured corset bodice held the whole thing together. It was the kind of dress that makes everyone else in the room silently reassess their choices. And then, and then…she changed into a second Louis Vuitton look for the after party, a sixties shift dress, because one seismic fashion statement apparently felt incomplete. Two looks in one night delivered with the energy of someone who has heard the word “accessible” one too many times and decided against it permanently.
Meryl Streep Channels Miranda Priestly
Meryl Streep, 76 years old and still the queen of class, arrived in a dramatic red leather Givenchy cape by Sarah Burton. Long black opera gloves. Wide bug-eye sunglasses. Pointed-toe pumps visible beneath the sweep of it all. The cape was fastened at a necktie neckline and the overall effect was Miranda Priestly attending the coronation of Miranda Priestly as official Queen of Fashion. She looked like a woman who invented the concept of an entrance and is here to remind you of that fact. In 2006 she wore a delicate cream set with beaded embroidery. Growth is not always quiet.
Emily Blunt’s Fashion Evolution
Emily Blunt, who came to the first premiere in a sweet pink midi with lace trim, perfectly lovely, very innocent, arrived in 2026 wearing Schiaparelli haute couture with an asymmetrical tulle skirt ripped dramatically down the middle and back. Multiple layers. A shadow silhouette bodice. A large pom-pom that had no business being as chic as it was. It was the kind of look that wins a premiere and the internet at the same time, wearing them both like separate accessories.
Stanley Tucci upgraded from a grey suit to a velvet blazer and sunglasses, which is the Stanley Tucci move and always the correct one.
Then VS Now: What Changed
Here is what twenty years looks like when you pay attention to it: it looks like a Nicolas Ghesquière custom. It looks like Sarah Burton reaching for the leather. It looks like Schiaparelli trusting that you can carry ripped tulle across a Lincoln Center red carpet without irony. These are not coincidences. They are the result of women who spent two decades becoming extremely specific about who they are and finding designers who agree.
The original Devil Wears Prada argued that fashion was not frivolous. That it was power, identity, and consequence dressed up in something pretty. The sequel premiere made the same argument with considerably more square footage of skirt and the unshakeable calm of people who already won.
The cerulean speech, it turns out, was just the beginning.
