The Met Gala Enters Miranda Priestly’s Mirror

The Met Gala has always been a theater of fashion power. This year, however, it stood not merely beneath camera flashes, but inside its own reflection. After the promotional surge around “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art could no longer look innocent. They seemed like a continuation of a scene audiences had just watched on screen.

The sequel opens with an almost Met Gala-like event — not at the Met itself, but outside another New York museum, where Miranda Priestly returns exactly as myth requires: among photographers, evening gowns, security, stars and the taut gleam that makes fashion resemble a state ceremony.

The overlap is not accidental. For weeks, the film, Vogue and the Met Gala operated as one system of amplification. Covers, photo shoots, podcasts, book-club choices, archival memories, interviews and premiere noise created the sense that the real fashion industry was not simply promoting a movie about itself, but stepping into its plot.

Daycom’s assessment is that this year’s Met Gala became the clearest example of a cultural loop: Vogue promotes a film inspired by Vogue; the film recreates a gala ritual that Vogue turned into a global spectacle; and the real event begins to be seen through the frames of its fictional version.

The word “meta” works almost literally here. Anna Wintour, who spent decades shaping the Met Gala into the summit of the fashion calendar, appears beside Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly — her cinematic shadow. This is no longer just a game of recognition. It is a meeting of the original, the myth and an industry that has learned to monetize both.

Меріл Стріп у сукні від Balenciaga для сцени зі Стенлі Туччі на заході, схожому на Met Gala — Маколл Полей/Студія 20-го століття

Once, “The Devil Wears Prada” was an uncomfortable mirror for the fashion world. It portrayed editors, designers and assistants as brilliant, severe, self-regarding people capable of turning work into a system of humiliation. In 2006, many in the industry wanted little to do with that portrait.

Now the mood has changed. What once looked like satire has become heritage. The film no longer threatens Vogue. Instead, it helps Vogue remind the public of its cultural force at a time when magazine power is no longer as unquestioned as it was two decades ago.

That is the central paradox of the new affection between fashion’s establishment and the franchise. The first film had bite because it stood slightly outside the system and could mock it. The sequel arrives inside the system’s embrace, with cameos, promotional partnerships and open pleasure in mutual advantage.

Does that cost the story its teeth? The risk is obvious. When the establishment blesses a satire of itself, satire can turn into a souvenir. Instead of critique, there is a glossy postcard: Miranda, Runway, staircases, photographers, familiar lines, familiar chill and the familiar pleasure of recognition.

Yet there is another side to this. Vogue’s active embrace of “The Devil Wears Prada 2” reveals a shift in power. Modern glossy media can no longer afford the luxury of pretending it does not need mass culture. It must work with memes, cinema, nostalgia, virality and its own caricature.

Через двадцять років після першого фільму «Диявол носить Prada» Стріп возз'єдналася з Енн Гетевей для зйомок високобюджетного продовження. Вище: Міранда та Енді, знову колеги по журналу Runway, вирушають до Мілана на тиждень моди — Маколл Полей/Студії 20-го століття

That is not simply weakness. It is adaptation. The Met Gala has long since become more than a fund-raiser for the Costume Institute. It is a global attention platform — watched like a sports final, debated like a political gesture, judged like an exhibition, mocked as vanity theater and consumed as an endless stream of images.

In that environment, Vogue no longer merely describes fashion. It produces events designed to live in real time — in feeds, reactions, recaps, memes and night-of verdicts. The Met Gala remains the most effective of these events: a red carpet that annually proves fashion can still make the world look.

But “The Devil Wears Prada 2” adds another layer to the spectacle. Viewers no longer see only celebrities climbing the stairs. They see a scene that cinema has already prepared for them as a cultural template. The real Met Gala begins to look like an extension of the fictional Runway universe.

That is especially ironic because the first film argued that fashion matters precisely because it enters everyone’s life unnoticed. The famous cerulean sweater monologue explained that even those who think they stand outside fashion are already inside its decisions.

Now the same principle applies to media. Even those who do not care about the Met Gala see fragments of it online. Even those who have not seen the sequel recognize Miranda. Even those who do not read Vogue enter its orbit through a cover, photograph, costume, meme or argument.

Вінтур (угорі, прибула на Met Gala 2023 року з актором Біллом Найї) майже самотужки перетворила те, що колись було звичайним нью-йоркським світським гала-вечором, на культурний колос, яким воно є сьогодні — Джутарат Піньйодунячет

That is why this Met Gala feels not merely like an event, but like proof that fashion survives by transforming itself. It can no longer rely only on magazine authority, editorial secrecy or fear of the editor in chief. It needs film, platforms, collaborations, fan service and the ability to turn its own history into content.

This may look like the loss of old grandeur. In part, it is. In a world where Vogue reduces its print rhythm, consolidates digital platforms and competes for attention alongside millions of independent voices, the old image of the magazine as supreme arbiter of taste no longer works without revision.

But it also shows that symbolic power does not disappear at once. It changes form. Anna Wintour is no longer only an editor in dark glasses. She becomes a figure in a global cultural architecture, where the line between real authority, public image and fictional shadow is deliberately blurred.

Miranda Priestly is necessary here not only as a nostalgic character. She helps fashion remember its own myth of ruthless precision, hierarchy, taste and fear. Even if real editorial offices now live in a world of clicks, layoffs, branded content and algorithms, they still want the face of absolute power.

That makes this meta-game more than minor promotion. It is an industry diagnosis. Fashion can no longer simply be fashion. It must be a film about fashion, a magazine about the film, a gala about the magazine, a meme about the gala and a business that calls all of it culture.

Трейлер обіцяє знову зібрати разом усю команду, включаючи Меріл Стріп у ролі Міранди Прістлі та Енн Гетевей у ролі Енді Сакса — Студії 20-го століття

The final question is not whether there are too many self-references in the story. It is whether fashion can still speak about anything beyond its own mirror. If it can, the Met Gala remains a living ritual. If not, it risks becoming the most luxurious mirror maze in contemporary culture.

For now, the maze works. Stars climb the steps, photographers shout names, Vogue manufactures the moment, Disney receives the resonance, Miranda Priestly looks at the world through her glasses again, and the public willingly enters the game. Perhaps that is what fashion is now expected to offer: not only dresses, but the feeling of standing inside a myth that knows exactly what it is.

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