When Molly Rogers got the call to work on the costumes for The Devil Wears Prada, she could sense right away that she was involved in something special.
“I knew people were going to go nuts for it – I’d never turned the pages of a script like that before,” said Rogers, who worked on the 2006 film as the associate costume designer under the tutelage of her longtime mentor, Sex And The City costume designer Patricia Field.
But even Rogers couldn’t have predicted just how big the film would become.
In the 20 years since its release, the comedy, about imperious fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) and her ill-suited assistant, Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathaway), has become part of the cultural lexicon, thanks to memes and memorable lines like Priestly’s contemptuous catchphrase, “That’s all.”
So when Rogers was tapped to handle the costumes for the film sequel – this time as lead designer – she jumped at the opportunity.
Some designers might have been intimidated.
Hathaway has called designing the costumes for a Devil Wears Prada film a “heroic act”, explaining: “It’s not just one character arc, it’s so, so many. Fashion is a language in the film; it’s another character.”
For Rogers, though, the experience was more nostalgic than nerve-wracking.
“It was like coming back to summer camp,” she said of the production.
On a recent morning at the Four Seasons Hotel in lower Manhattan, Rogers went over sketches for six pivotal costumes from The Devil Wears Prada 2 – and one that didn’t make the cut.
Read more: Fashion frenzy surrounding 'The Devil Wears Prada' sequel reaches a fever pitch
Vision in red
At Rogers’ first meeting with Streep, Priestly's gala look came up, and both had the same immediate thought: “It has to be red.”
“And she’s the one who said, ‘Let’s do a sleeve on one arm and bare on the other,’” Rogers said of Priestly’s asymmetrical gown, which is a custom-made Balenciaga in red silk super taffeta. “It’s so fabulous.”
The dress, which features a tilted collar and a thin matching belt, was built in Paris, with a team from Balenciaga flying to New York City twice to fit Streep for it.
At one point the actress suggested trying a hat to top off the look – possibly a nod to horns–— but Rogers said she knew it was “gilding the lily”.
“It was her white hair alone that the red gown should frame,” she said.
Party in the back
As Runway magazine’s new features editor, Sachs is back in the same orbit as her frenemy and fellow ex-assistant, Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt), who’s now an executive at Christian Dior.
To solve a crisis at the magazine, Sachs agrees to an expansive feature on the company, whose advertising dollars Runway needs.
For Sach’s interview look, Rogers opted for a black button-down Jean Paul Gaultier pin-striped vest, paired with matching slacks, a pearl necklace – and nothing underneath.
“I was constantly trying to balance found things with things that she could have afforded and that she would wear as a professional reporter,” Rogers said.
There’s also a surprise when Sachs turns around: The vest has an all-white silk back.
“I loved that,” Rogers said.
Caped betrayer
For a scene involving a backstabbing Charlton, Rogers went with a sequined Dior houndstooth power suit – with a Zimmermann leather capelet.
“I tried to find Dior pieces that have a little edge to them,” Rogers said of the black-and-white wool number from the Spring/Summer 2026 collection.
Charlton’s style in the sequel, she said, was an extension of the first.
The character still has a mix-and-match aesthetic, pairing, for instance, a white Dior button-down with a Wiederhoeft corset and Gaultier black-and-white pin-striped pants.
“We didn’t have enough outfits for her,” Rogers said. “I think she changed 16 times.”
Editor chic
One lesson Rogers has learned in more than 40 years working with Field, she said, is that “you cannot force an actor to wear anything”.
“You can have your heart set on a gown that you want in a scene and think it’s the perfect colour, but you’re not the one in it,” she said.
“Pat’s fittings, and mine as well, are very collaborative: Do you like what I brought into the room? How does it feel on you?”
So when she came across this homey, tasselled Dries Van Noten jacket, she crossed her fingers that Streep would dig it.
Streep did.
“She thought it was a great piece for the right scene,” Rogers said.
“I thought it had enough oomph to it to still be in the office, and it looked like ‘editor.’ It made me think of Diana Vreeland (once the editor-in-chief of Vogue).”
Sheer suspenders
Sachs’s gala look inverts the film’s through-line of sleeveless pieces layered atop button-ups and blouses.
Here the base layer, a blouse from the Armani Prive Autumn/Winter 2024 couture collection, is sheer, tucked beneath a black silk velvet jumpsuit with pinstripe Swarovski crystal suspenders.
“It came down the runway without a blouse, and I was like, David’s never going to let me do that,” Rogers said, referring to the director, David Frankel.
“Anne Hathaway at the dinner table with no blouse on – how cool would that be? But they made us a beautiful sheer blouse.”
Another hat that appeared in Rogers’ initial sketch bit the dust: a velvet Armani beret with jet-black glass stones.
“I am a hat fighter,” Rogers said. “I’ve gone through big hat fights, with Sarah Jessica Parker and I fighting for hats on TV shows. They always don’t want to light them, or they cast shadows, blah blah blah, and it always unfinishes an outfit.”
Though the beret for Sachs was fabricated, she said, “Sure enough, they killed it.”
Read more: Still think the 'devil' wears Prada? Fashion has moved on, she now wears Sasuphi
Human disco ball
When Priestly saunters through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Milan’s stunning historic shopping arcade, the lights shimmer off the coloured crystals and black sequins on her Armani overcoat, turning her into a human disco ball.
“When I read the script, I was like, ‘That needs to dazzle,’” Rogers said of the statement piece from Giorgio Armani’s Prive Spring/Summer 2025 couture collection, which she layered over a tie-neck Lurex Oud blouse and black trousers.
It was a choice she initially had some trepidation about.
“I was afraid of the pussy-bow blouse on Miranda Priestly,” she said. “Because that feels soft to me. But it was such a cacophony of colours and textures, and I felt like it was strong enough.”
Priestly’s black cat-eye Prada glasses are striking, of course, but Rogers said the boldest accessory was her side-swept white hair.
“I think that there was great resistance to that,” Rogers said. “People didn’t understand that.”
The look was drawn from that of fashion editor Polly Mellen and model Carmen Dell’Orefice.
“Meryl and Pat insisted on it,” Rogers said.
Power gloves
Emily’s gala dress – a strapless Dior gown with a nude tulle and black lace corset top, matching opera gloves and a slinky black satin skirt with a double side bow – was Rogers’ favourite look from the film.
Alas, it ended up on the cutting-room floor.
Still, she said, she loved getting the chance to bring an edge to a very un-Emily-like shape.
“When I think of Dior and bows, I think of Charlotte,” Rogers said of the preppy Sex And The City character.
“So to take a Dior bow and make it look – there’s a bit of a Goth idea there. And I thought that was really appropriate for her character.” – ©2026 The New York Times Company
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
