In a brilliant PR move, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and star Anne Hathaway were seated next to one another in the front row of the Michael Kors show on Wednesday.
Wintour was dressed in her trademark ensemble, complete with heavy sunglasses that distorted her eyes and her classic blonde hairstyle, but Hathaway's costume appeared to be an exact replica of Wintour's. Hathaway resembled her on-screen character Andrea Sachs from the 2006 movie “The Devil Wears Prada” by donning a black knit turtleneck, a chestnut brown leather coat, and a high ponytail with a blunt fringe.
The film, which is based on Lauren Weisberger's 2003 novel of the same name, follows Sachs as she awkwardly navigates the top tiers of the fashion business in search of a journalism career. For a brief period of time, she serves as the abused personal assistant of Meryl Streep's (played by Anna Wintour) iron-fisted magazine editor Miranda Priestly.
Nearly 17 years later, “The Devil Wears Prada” is still regarded as one of the funniest exposes of the ridiculousness of the business. The internet seized the opportunity to celebrate Hathaway's full circle performance when she was seated next to the movie's inspiration while wearing an outfit that appeared to have been taken from from the closet of her character Andrea Sachs. The fashion watchdog Instagram account Diet Prada remarked in a post that has received more than 250,000 likes since last night, “It's giving Andy Sachs, 2022!”
Hathaway has, however, already created a self-referential fashion moment. The actor has been in a number of movies that have since faded from popular memory, such as her role as the shy teen-turned-princess Mia Thermopolis in the “Princess Diaries” series (2001-2004). Hathaway's ethereal Armani Privé column dress from the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, which she wore to the red carpet screening of “Armageddon Time,” went viral because it resembled the regal garb frequently worn by her character, the Princess of Genovia.
After February events were cancelled due to continued Covid-19 limitations, New York Fashion Week was back and bigger than ever this season. Its finale, a beautifully meta encounter between Hathaway and Wintour, was the ideal way to cap off the festival. The glamorous paparazzi photograph is so strange that you can almost hear Priestly's eerie words being whispered through her infamously pursed lips: “Everyone desires this. Everyone want to be like us.”