• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, July 17, 2024

The news from Hollywood is that Disney may do a sequel to the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada, In that mega hit, Meryl Streep played a no-nonsense editor purportedly based on the character of Anna Wintour. 

It’s not for us to say if the sequel now in early development is a valuable commercial  property. But it has an interesting premise. 

In this one, the Wintour character, Miranda Priestly, is coping with the problems confronting most magazine publishers in the 21^stcentury, starting with the decline of print. Her former assistant now commands advertising dollars desperately needed by Priestly, Puck reports: It may be payback time for prior slights on the job. 

That might be worth sitting through, although it can’t possibly be entertaining to anyone who has to deal with these issues on a daily basis. Where’s the glamour?

We’re sure this will be softened by Hollywood, and that there will be plenty of romance and even some laughs. But Priestly (and Streep) will be almost 20 years older. It could be a dose of cold reality for audiences. 

And it raises the question: How long can an “imperious,” all-powerful leader like Anna Wintour endure? 

In 2020, almost as a cap to her career, Wintour was promoted to global editorial director of Vogue and global chief content officer of Condé Nast. She grew up around publishing—her father was the editor of the Evening Standard—but she very much had to work her way up on her own.

As the Queen of Fashion, Wintour has since emerged as tabloid caricature, a perfectionist willing to tear up covers at the last minute, a terror to her staff and a person whom underlings dare not look in the eye.

“They have a vivid imagination at times,” Wintour said of the tabloids during a Financial Times luncheon interview in which she ate not a bite. “I hope sincerely that the colleagues I work with know who I am and what our joint values are.”

What’s her place in history beyond being an “editrix” who has movies made about her?

“I am not a creative person,” she told FT. “I can’t draw, I can’t sketch, I can’t make anything. I just have to make sure things are being done right.”