David Frankel’s long-awaited sequel The Devil Wears Prada 2 released almost 20 years after the first part. That movie is loved till date for its fascinating characters, memorable looks, and not to forget, instantly quotable dialogues. The sequel has its own share of those — most notably Emily Blunt’s meme-worthy “May the bridges I burn light my way” — but it also has callbacks to the first part’s enduring motifs through Easter eggs peppered all over the sequel. Here’s a list of some you may have missed, and can catch up on during a repeat viewing.
In the the first part, Meryl Streep’s fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly kicks off her iconic ‘cerulean blue’ monologue after Anne Hathaway’s first assistant Andrea can’t help but chuckle at Miranda being shown two blue belts as options to go with a dress. When she points out that they’re both blue, Miranda delivers a minute-long fashion masterclass on how trends trickle down from the echelons of fashion to the streets, from where Andrea picked up her cerulean sweater.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 starts like the first part, with Andrea brushing her teeth and wiping her washroom mirror. The one notable change is her toothbrush is now an electric one. But as she walks across New York streets, her eyes catch a fleeting glimpse of a vendor showing a customer two identical (?) belts, much to her quick amusement. Even though it’s been 20 years since she quit Runway, she still can’t forget the one-minute fashion masterclass from that day. Little does she know that on that very same evening, she’d be roped back into her former office and pulled back into the world of fashion journalism.
‘Florals spring’
Who can forget Miranda gunning down the creative input from her subordinate to have the cover of the spring magazine don a floral wardrobe with, “Florals for spring? Groundbreaking.” While she doesn’t repeat the sarcastic barb in the sequel, a reference to that makes it to the Met Gala theme — “Florals spring”. However, not too many celebrities on the red carpet are seen following that theme though (probably to evade the Miranda Priestly fashion police), including Miranda herself, who shows up, ready to kill with a crimson-red dress. Little does she know that she’d end up becoming the red-hot target of a scandal minutes later.
‘A million girls would kill for this job’
As Andrea is rehired at Runway by the top leadership as the Features editor to tackle the scandal, she can’t help but notice a guy sitting at the desk right outside Miranda’s office, where Emily (Blunt) used to stay glued to two decades ago. He cribs that he can’t even get up for loo breaks, but doesn’t mind since “a million others would kill for this job”. “Ya, I’ve heard that,” says Andy, recalling Emily’s constant but futile affirmations of “I love my job”.
Emily Blunt in The Devil Wears Prada.
‘Do not go up those stairs’
Andrea also has a friendly advice for the second assistant, who’s waiting way beyond the work hours to deliver physical manuscripts to Miranda’s home. “Just don’t go up the stairs,” warns Andrea, much to the shock of the assistant who exclaims, “Of course, not. Can’t think of anyone who’d dare to do that.” “I know, can’t think of anyone either,” says Andrea, with a shrug of shoulders. But like she did in the first part — and got an inadvertent but revealing peak into Miranda’s personal life — she does so again in the sequel. As she causally begins to scale the winding staircase, Miranda’s current husband (Kenneth Branagh) compliments her behind her back and says, “Brave!”
‘Write that Miranda Priestly exposé!’
When Andrea breaks it to her friends that she’s joining Runway again, her friend, who works at a publishing house, pitches to her the offer to write a definitive Miranda Priestly expose. Andrea remains committed to not going ahead with that right till the end of the movie, despite the handsome offer of $350,000. This is the most meta Easter egg in The Devil Wears Prada 2, given the first part was based on Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel of the same name, which was an even biting expose reportedly based on her tenure at Vogue under legendary editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, on which Miranda’s character was originally modelled.
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‘That’s all’
Arguably the most quoted line from the first part, Miranda’s dismissive “That’s All” to her colleagues, also crops up in the sequel, though in the most unexpected yet brutal place. *Spoilers ahead* When Miranda confronts Emily, who now works at Dior, and admits to her that she got the luxury brand to poach her from Runway because she’s “not a visionary, but just a vendor”, she puts an exclamation point to that attack with her signature “That’s All”.
‘Shared carbs don’t have calories’
After Emily turns around and asks to meet Andrea at a restaurant, she also offers her her hand in friendship. As Andrea accepts gladly, Emily celebrates that by ordering a plate of fries. In that moment, a surprised Andrea must have been taken back to 20 years ago, in the first part, when Emily complains Andy gets to go to Paris Fashion Week despite her sin of “eating carbs”. But Emily offers a philosophy for Andy (and herself) to feel less guilty about the indulgence — “You don’t know? Shared carbs don’t have calories”.
Return of the cerulean sweater
If the opening montage was Andrea’s blink-and-miss recall of the two blue belts from the first part, the closing scene has her wearing a version of the cerulean sweater. It’s not the same one, since if you recall, that one was stained. This is a new piece, but drenched in the same cerulean blue, as Andrea delivers the hard copy of her latest piece to Miranda’s office. When she overstays her welcome by a few seconds, Miranda chides her and prompts her immediate exit. Because even when now they’re a team again, some things just don’t change — from Miranda’s mood to that cerulean blue.
